Crackles are the sounds you will hear in a lung field that has fluid in the small airways. As stated before, crackles and rales are the same thing, and this can often lead to confusion among health care providers. Crackles come in two flavours: fine and coarse. Fine crackles sound like salt heated on a frying pan or the sound of rolling your hair between your fingers next to your ear. Coarse crackles sound like pouring water out of a bottle or like ripping open Velcro. This lung sound is often a sign of adult respiratory distress syndrome, early congestive heart failure, asthma, and pulmonary oedema. Rhonchi, rales, wheezes, rubbing or stridor? â Listening for lung sounds.
Hottest Inhabited Place on Earth: Dallol, Ethiopia. The Afar Region of Africa, named for the people who call it home, encompasses Djibouti, Eritrea, and the northeast corner of Ethiopia. A notable trait of the Afar Triangle is the Danakil Depression, the lowest point in Africa. The territory is one of the hottest on the planet, and features everything from earthquakes and volcanoes to geysers and salt canyons. It is also home to Dallol, a remote mining camp accessible by camel.
It not only uses the average summer high temperature, but also includes the nighttime low temperature and dew point (a measure of humidity). Of the 50 largest metro areas in the United States, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Houston have the hottest summers, and Seattle, San Francisco, and Portland have the coolest. (A full list of the 50 metros is at the end of this post, and a ranking of all 361 U.S. metros is available for download here.)