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An Enlightened Look at an Over-Lighted World
Saige writes "Every night, as darkness descends, countless street lamps and lights turn on to keep the darkness at bay, bathing countless square feet of the planet in light that sometimes rivals daytime. But has anyone stopped to consider what effect all this light may have on people and animals that have evolved to fit an environment where a significant part of the 24 hour day is spent in lightless conditions? Some scientists have, and they are claiming that all this light is causing numerous problems."
"...a growing body of research suggests that excessive exposure to [artificial] night light can ... even trigger deadly hormonal imbalances in humans."
riiiiight.... That's why everyone that lives in Alaska, north of the arctic circle, dies when they reach puberty. Man, what would life be like without those deadly hormonal imbalances due to excessive light during the summer in Alaska?
Seriously though, I think the bigger problem is from the lack of light! If you go to those same regions (north of the arctic circle), you'll find abnormally high suicide rates during the winter due to depression from the excessive darkness.
Ok, I agree that this is an incredible waste of energy. Lets keep our motives honest though! If we're trying to save money & our environment, then it's a great idea - but don't tell me that excessive light is killing people.
oh wait, thats bad movies... nevermind.
I don't care if the excess light inhibits further evolution or causes intense sleep disorder - I just want to be able to use my $350 telescope without having to drive to the fucking boonies!
From fox43.trb.com: Scuse Me While I Kiss The Sky March 30 03 SI-1409 British filmmaker Declan Desmond (guest star Eric Idle) heads to Springfield in order to film a documentary on the lives of American elementary students. Springfield Elementary is chosen as the school to be filmed and Bart and Lisa quickly find themselves at the heart of the film. Bart plans on showing how cool he is by hitting kids with dirt clods, but Nelson hits him first and Bart loses his status as a cool kid. Things get worse for Bart when Nelson steals a hood ornament and becomes king of the schoolyard, prompting even Milhouse to tell Bart how big of a loser he is. Principal Skinner wants to show Desmond the more enlightened side of the school and introduces him to Lisa. However, Desmond isn't impressed and belittles her into thinking that her life has no direction and she'll never succeed. Lisa becomes depressed and heads to the Springfield Museum to find inspiration. After deciding Paleontology and Geology aren't for her, she's captivated by the planetarium and decides to devote herself to astronomy. Lisa convinces Homer to buy her a telescope and she sets off to discover the wonders of the heavens. But, much to her dismay she finds that Springfield's light pollution is impeding her ability to view the stars. Lisa starts a petition to rid the city of it's nighttime lights, but after Mayor Quimby shuts down the lights, crime soars and the residents demand more light. Quimby turns on so much light that night becomes day and no one can get any sleep. Bart and Lisa, with Homer's help, overload the power plant and bring night back to Springfield. An angry mob is about to tear the kids apart until a meteor shower shows them just how beautiful the night sky is. Anyone who's seen this episode can agree, those animals (and humans) were doing some weird stuff from all of that light! And we all know, if its on Simpsons, it must be true!
Evolution has given us several adaptations that allow us to be in darkness as needed.
I think they all revolve around configuring sendmail.
Building houses right on the animals homes is probably a lot worse for them than shining lights during the twilight hours. At midnight in my town we don't have coyotes and mountain lions roaming our streets; they stay out in what wilderness is left. And somehow I think my little wooden box has more to do with it than the light it emits.
From the article:
"Never argue against something on behalf of moths," he warns. "People will just laugh at you. Talk about ecosystems instead."
Point well taken ;)
I live in England and a popular BBC science TV programme, "Tomorrow's World" was doing reports on this phenomenon as far back as 1998/1999. If I recall correctly, they even asked viewers to do an informal study whereby they looked at the night sky through a toilet roll tube and counted the number of visible stars, then to send in that number and geographical location in so that they could figure out where light pollution was worst. As far as I can tell, the south of the country was a lot more afflicted than the north, with major cities (particularly London) often having no stars visible at all at some times.
Bash script for FP whores
who's bright idea was this anyways?
The International Dark Sky Association is an organization that has been looking at these issues for some time, if you want to get involved. They have some interesting information and data about night-time lighting and its relationship to crime, as well as other things.
Throughout history all mankind was treated to this incredible sight, and now for most of us, it's gone.
Some of my most memorable experiences were when I made it out to a deserted area, free of light pollution, and allowed to take in the night sky as it really is.
What's the loss of that? It goes beyond seritonin levels... there's something we've lost that connects us to the universe, that can so easily awe us. What are the consequences of that on our psyches? On our very soul?
I say a bunch of us should get together, pool our resources, and buy up a couple of thousand square miles of land and have it designated a no-light zone. Make it out in the desert somewhere, while it's still vacant. The only people allowed to travel/live there would be those who voluntarily consent to certain rules designed to keep light pollution down to zero. No driving at night for instance, or if you do, doing so using some sort of special equipment like night-vision goggles say. All windows would have to be equipped with zero-leakage blinds or curtains. No outdoor lighting of any kind, whatsoever.
Call it Dark City. Like the movie, only darker (and hopefully more friendly people.)
I wonder how many of us would want to live there?
How many of us have actually gotten to see the night sky as it really is?
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
Having been a city dweller for more years than I care to remember, I recently had an assignment in Mongolia. I was working about 50 miles from the nearest group of tents, which is the closest thing you get to a village in that part of the world, and hundreds of miles fom the nearest town, I continuously found myself staring upwards muttering expletives to myself, a truly awsome sight. Perhaps soon to become one of the wonders of the ancient world.
A revealing thing about that photo, is how it shows the outline of some countries, eg South Africa and especially Israel.
Darkest Africa is still the norm after more than a hundred years of electricity. Similarly, Israel stands out amongst its neighbours as the only developed area in that part of the world.
Oh well, what the hell...
Okay, here's the joke I was gonna make, "Take back the night sky, Springfield!"
:)
See? That's all you had to do to get a funny. You're like the kid that turns in a 200 page essay when the teacher requests a 2 page book report.
the only reason i cant see the stars at night where i live is becuase of the lighting in a walmart parking lot, that is ten miles away(the parking lot is huge)
so if we can convince walmart and the city to turn off every other one of their lights maybe we could see the stars, and if we did this nationaly once a year or so, then scientist could get a good view of the sky without all the light pollution
yeah i know i cant spell
Artificial lighting can cause disorientation and misorientation of both adults and hatchlings. Turtle hatchlings are attracted to light, ignoring or coming out of the ocean to go towards a light source, increasing their chances of death or injury. In addition, as nesting females avoid areas with intense lighting, highly developed areas may cause problems for turtles trying to nest.
Guess they missed the PBS special.
Losers choose to abuse the use of "loose".
Yes the night sky is very pretty without the interference of lights. However, in my ordinary day to day existence, driving to work, trying to make a living, I can only imagine the horrible place night would be without artificial light. For one obvious example, driving a car would be impossible without headlights. Second, if you took away artificial light, people would be forced to adapt the work day to the hours of sunlight. Despite daylight savings time, in more northern areas like Washington, it's dark at 9 and dark at 5. So without artificial light, work would have to start at 10 and end at 4. Ain't gonna happen.
So yeah, I agree with you, the night sky sure is pretty, but that ain't worth turning the whole society over. And I do think you'd be able to find a handful of people to go along with a "no light zone" but these are likely going to be the same people who want the cities burned, enjoy weaving pants out of hemp, think a space ship will take them to the next plane, and want men eradicated from the human race etc.
Even more revealing is the Korean peninsula. South Korea is brightly lit, but there is a sharp divide at the 38th parallel: northward it is very dark indeed.
Very true. I'm sure those reasons are actually much more valid than the lack of light. I've read documentaries on small small villages in northern Canada & their economies don't really exist - they live off of whaling & seal oil. The kids hear enough about the rest of the world that they want to leave, but with no money, a lot of them don't think they can. So in some areas, the suicide rate is actually highest among teenagers / young adults. However, even with all these other factors, the suicides end up happening in the 'night' season.
To tie this in to my original post, it's interesting that in areas/times where daylight levels are the lowest, death rates are much higher than in areas/times where daylight levels are the highest.
Sadly no proof of deadly hormonal imbalances is included to support this article.. Makes me wonder...
"The farther from lights and altered habitats you get, the more moths you find," he says.
Animals have always for millions of years adapted to factors beyond their control. Climate, seasons, etc., they've all managed to evolve just fine.
Sure the article is informative but the studies should have included any relevant information (and I'm sure there is some) on adaptations by animals who are affected by this. As stated before though, animals have managed to adapt just fine for millions of years, and I'm sure similar arguments have come about for other technologies and when time has gone on, studies were proven wrong.
Example... Windmills used for energy were supposedly the devil's spawn way back when because it was viewed as a bird killer. Yet there is little mention of this anymore. Either the birds that were being killed are all dead and an entire species became extinct or... DUH... They adapated
Now to scroll down and see some trolls mention that Nelly Furtado "Turn off the lights" song
MoFscker
As a kid, I recall the first time I noticed the MW, I must have stared for an hour. I live an hour outside of Pittsburgh now and most of the sky is washed out. so I don't know how my kids are going to get the same treat. I was on a cruise last year and it was overcast at night, so we didn't get the chance to see much :-|
One positive side-effect: the constilations are much easier to locate, because the dimmer stars have washed out. I always had trouble spotting Orion's arms/torso, now those are the only things bright enough to be seen.
It's great to see the mention of the wattage and infrared inefficiencies of light sources, but it'd be better still to get numbers on what this does to global warming. If you think about the Terrawatts we're pouring into the atmosphere, there has got to be some measurable totals for temperature increase.
Heat polution can be more direct than light pollution. Light pollution is measurable in how it impedes stargazing, and thanks to this study how it sickens the biosphere... but what of the heat expelled in the generation and consumption of all our electricity?
Anyone flying in a plane at night knows there are a lot of billboards and lit buildings pointing their beams inefficiently into the night sky. I'd love to see some calculations on how many megacalories it takes to warm the earth's atmosphere a couple degrees. Chances are, we're literally consuming our own planet in wasted heat polution.
I was recently treated to this light show. Last weekend I was up in Clinton BC for the annual SCA war (google it if you don't know). Being that it's held in the middle of a huge ass field a few km from Clinton itself, which is in turn in the middle of nowhere, the night sky was amazing. Even with the light pollution of torches and flashlights from the 1100 campers around me, you could still easily just stare up at the sky and see the band of the milky way stretched across.
Quite honestly I just stopped in my tracks more than once and did nothing but stare up at the sky for a while, then move on a bit, and repeat.
There's a good section in that article called 'Lighting 101,' with a few facts about different types of electric lights. Check it out if you didn't already.
I live in a ~1000ft^2 duplex (three bedroom, three people) in a rural University town in Washington - electricty is relatively cheap compared to some cities. We pay 4.777 cents per KWH (First 600), 4.777 cents per KWH (601-1300), 5.718 cents per KWH (1300+)
Last year, during a three month period, our average cost per KWH was 5.25 cents. Since I changed all our lights to CFL's, our average cost per KWH is 4.90 cents. (We're buying less @ 5.718 cents per KWH).
We don't use all lights in our duplex equally, but for the sake of statistics, we save about $1 per month per CFL. (16 bulbs replaced = ~$16/month)
I bought the CFL's at Costco for ~$4 each (large, 23watt, 100watt equiv) and ~$2 each (small, 13 watt, 60 watt equiv). The initial investment was ~$55 & It paid for itself in 4 months. Supposedly, these bulbs will last 7 years, but even if they last 1 year, they will save money, electricty & some Sockeye Salmon! (Hydroelectic power... some politicians swear they are responsible for declining salmon populations)
In a region with more expensive electricity, you could save significantly more on lighting. If you can't stand the 'color' of fluorescent bulbs, you can do 50/50. Our dining room as two CFL's & one incandescent bulb.
Well, this was almost off topic, but it's still within the scope of the article I think!
Ah, a perfect opportunity to post a link to my favorite NASA photo! It is a composite image called the Earth at Night. It shows the intensity of man-made light on earth. The brighness level is a facinating combination of population density and economic development.
An interesting feature is the the Nile river on the top right corner of Africa. Each bank of the river is densly populated, beyond that is uninhabitable desert. That makes it an insanely narrow bright white line in the middle of the pitch black desert.
Another interesting feature is North/South Korea. They are just to the left of super-bright Japan. South Korea is a bright square just below North Korea. North Korea is a pitch-black area. The dividing line of bright to dark is like a knife-edge. North Korea is so dark it looks like empty ocean, making South Korea look almost like an island.
North Korea and South Korea have roughly equal population density. The entire difference is due to development. South Korea is quite prosperous while North Korea is suffering famines while they allocate a crushing 30% of their gross national product to supporting the third largest army in the world (China has the largest, USA is second). North Korea says they want to "Liberate".
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
I live in an brownstone townhouse in the oldest party of my city. I had one of the electricians from my place-of-work (bigthreeauto) come and, while the light was still powered, install a switch in the interior of the column.
Now, when I have guests or the neighbours are partying outside (we socialize alot) i open the cover and throw the damn switch.
The rest of the street is still lit in the uncomfortable glow of HPS bulbs, but not my yard -- its much darker.
Ive unscrewed countless bulbs in my day, I grew up in a rural area, and the bloody city lights are one of my #1 pet peeves. Night was meant to be dark. I get *very* uncomfortable under street lights.
Light fucks up moths.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
It turns out that 100+ megawatt powerplants are really slow to adjust their output, like 24 hours slow, but the customers use more power during the day than at night (actually it is a nice defined peak around noon). The power plants are set to accomodate this peak, which leaves a lot of extra capacity at night. Even with the price of power 3x higher during the day, the power companies still shed load every night. Thus, to ballance out usage, power companies give a really sweet deals for nighttime lighting.
Interestingly, the commercial billing is set up to penalize peak usage. Here in Illinois ComEd charges industrial customers based on their highest three hours in the last 12 months (simplified explaination), where it is possible to pay more for your peak charges than actual usage for many months. Thus, running a computer in the hours setting the peak is usually more expensive than running it for the entire rest of the year.
"...I continuously found myself staring upwards muttering expletives to myself, a truly awsome sight. Perhaps soon to become one of the wonders of the ancient world."
I used to be an ametuer astronomer (simply no time or decent equipment of late), and I love the stars as well. And I remember my first memory of going out to the boonies, and looking up in the cold winter night and seeing the most beautiful night sky I'd ever seen. I was in love with the stars from that point.
That said, the stars aren't going anywhere, so they're not going to become "one of the wonders of the ancient world". That would assume that EVERYWHERE on Earth would be lighted at night, and that will never be the case. If you're in a city, you're simply going to have to plan your star trips, and go into the boonies at night. But those unlighted boonies will always be there.
Wish I could have been with you in Mongolia though. That sounded like an outstanding expierience. Wonder what you do for a living?
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
There's nothing 'insightful' about this post, it's simply an ideological diatribe maligning the work of real scientists without offering any kind of factual rebuttal. Several scientists and physicians (including a neuroendocrinologist) made many very specific claims about the effects of light pollution on humans, insects, and plankton. Your rebuttal is 'Yeah... Riiiiight.' I didn't read a single valid counterpoint to any of the claims presented in this article.
You probably don't care about the plankton, insects, and other environmental effects presented, so let's get straight to the human outcomes listed: increased cancer rates among humans; dangerous breathing disorders during sleep; decreased attention during critical events such as driving, etc. Real scientists and clinicians made factual statements about problems they're seeing due to light pollution, and you simply toss it off as 'sensationalism'. Not a factual word about why they're wrong other than the implied 'it can't be'. That is the argument of a ideologue.
You'll notice that the scientists interviewed didn't make policy recommendations, only the city planners interviewed did. You might also notice that none of the city planners recommended shutting off the lights, only a move toward a different kind of city lighting. And, to top it off, they're recommendations save money due to increased energy efficiency. Gee, that's 'sensationalism' for ya.
From a factual standpoint, your argument simply doesn't stand muster. It's pseudoscientific babble based not on scientific study and open debate, but on derision of the scientists for their conclusions; regardless of the data they collected. Your skepticism is poorly placed given the argument you presented. JMO.
--Maynard
Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston reviewed the health histories of 78,562 nurses and found a lower but still significant correlation: Those with one to 29 years on the night shift showed, on average, an 8 percent increase in breast cancer; those with 30 or more years showed a 36 percent increase.
Just about every study shows 3rd shift workers suffering from more adverse health problems than those who are productive in the daytime. I think this has more to do with sunlight and being in a more natural cycle. I personally think depression caused by working overnight has far more to do with these health problems. The typical health of most night-time workers I've known (over 35) have been in rough shape from mostly preventable conditions like smoking, drinking, etc.
Elizabeth Alvarez, the International Dark-Sky Association's associate director, counters with photos of bright streetlights casting deep shadows where bad guys could lurk. "Glare does not help visibility!" she says. "Too much light is blinding."
This is very true. When I grew up out in the country, I could walk outside and see several hundred feet on any night with even a slight moon. Once I moved to the city, this was not the case. So many bright lights everywhere, that where one is not appears pitch black. No way in hell could you ever manage to sneak up on me out in the woods, but in a city, it'd be about as hard as standing past where the street lamp's light is cast.
The thing that bothers me about all this extra lighting at night is the wasting of resources. I'd rather get a cut on my state and local taxes and do without the massive lighting infrastructure on my local freeways. My car has headlights that illuminate everything I need to see to drive safely and the only cost is energy my motor would have wasted anyway.
On a more reasonable note, what we really need is a few more technical hurdles overcome and move to LED lighting. The safety factor of lower operating tempuratures and saved energy would be immensely beneficial.
Where I live (Saskatchewan, CA) I have watched the transition from white mercury lighting to yellow sodium lighting. At first I was concerned about reduced lighting, security, etc. but in the last two years of living 2 doors down from the street light I have grown to like the sodium lighting better. I should also mention that last summer the city upgraded the lighting in my area by installing more street lights (1 per half block vs 1 per block).
I know find more then adequate lighting on the street without an excess in my backyard due to bleeding from bright white light sources. The new lights seem to have better shielding so as to light the street and not the neighborhood. Also the yellow lights do not provide as much of a distraction, fucus point, or blinding glare as the white lights when driving.
Over all considering factors such as: security lighting, convenience lighting, driving, and yard privacy I have to say that the yellow lower lumen sodium lighting wins out in my mind.
So far as farm yard lighting goes, I can understand wanting to light the yard up more as you have a much larger area to monitor for security purposes. Also we used the yard light on our farm as general lighting when trying to work in the late evening or at night. This is not the case for city street lights as typically each property owner has there own method of lighting their yard for their own purposes.
As a final point on yard lighting, if I am just navigating my yard a night as opposed to working in it I will shut off the outside lights as I can see better (read as: more of the yard but less detail) with the general illumination from other light sources outside my yard (city lights, moon, etc.) then I can by flooding part of my yard with a flood light.
Merlin.
There's a book which deals with the issues of light's impact on human health called Lights Out. The authors claim that extended light induces sugar cravings in people among other things. Worth a look if you're into that kind of stuff.
What about the heat from all those bulbs- global warming is a reality.
While the heat generated from each bulb may not be great (tried holding onto a light bulb recently ??) when there are that many, it is signifigant - and more to the point - it is distrubuted over a wide area so this is a very effecent way to warm something large - the Earth.
I haven't seen this mentioned yet. I would urge everyone concerned with this issue to become members of the International Dark Sky Association. They have wonderful information on the issue and are very active in trying to get light pollution laws enforced.
I'm from the countryside and I didn't really noticed how beautiful my night sky was. I began missing darkness and silence after moving to the city. You can't see any stars at all, and often the sky is purple with orange clouds. This just doesn't look real to me; I feel like if I'm inside a weird videogame.
By the way, if you want to help our children to see all those beautiful stars, take a look at darksky.org!
Prescriptive grammar:linguistics
As an amateur astronomer (or at least the son of an amateur astronomer), this is a subject that is very near and dear to my heart. As someone who is trying to change the environment, it's even dearer. This brings my to my rant of the day:
Why do I look downtown at 3:00am, and see the 50 story high-rises lit up like bloody christmas trees??!!! There are more lights in one building like that than a square mile of low-density residential (i.e. houses), and with no one at all to see them except for the security guards, they're 90% turned on. That's the sort of thing that makes me wonder why I bother even trying.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Streetlights provide that load, and make us safer.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
When the city I lived in switched from incandescent to mercury vapor lighting, which was much brighter, they found that the trees became stunted and sick. The trees were no longer able to tell the difference between day and night. This screwed up their internal processes and cycles.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
How dark are your shades?
No, really, I'm serious. Non-nocturnal animals living in the wild evolved in an environment that was incredibly dark. Unless you go inside a closet and close the door, you're not likely to experience that level of darkness in a typical house.
Even if you do turn off the "lights", it's often much harder to turn off the LEDs. In my room I have an iBook with a glowing indicator, the LED ring indicating it's charging, the LED on my monitor, and a few other small sources of light. Many other people have much brighter LEDs in the form of alarm clocks. Besides that, there's the small lights in the courtyard outside that, while not very bright, and not very close, still leak light through my blinds.
Once the sun comes up it's even worse. My blinds don't do enough to block the sunlight. Sure, I don't have direct sunlight on my face, but my room does glow pretty well in the morning. The end result is that I sleep restlessly. I should get around to blocking off all the sources of light, but I never seem to have time -- and the women in the study likely don't either.
Last month I drove from my old home (Orlando, FL) to my new one (Spokane, WA). I was amazed at the difference in the night sky between the two places.
The last night of my drive, I stopped at Lookout Pass to camp for the night. Since it is summer, and the ski facilities are closed, there were only three cars besides myself up there.
Lookout Pass is 4725 ft. up in the mountains, right on the border between Montana and Idaho (Exit 0 on I -90).
Not a small town for miles, and not a city of mention for 50+ miles in any direction. Almost zero light pollution.
I've never been able to see so many stars before. The Milky Way stood out and was easily visible. I was able to watch sattelites pass overhead. You can understand how the ancient Greeks saw the constellations -- it really helps when you can see the fainter stars.
It is all out-of-sight, out-of-mind. Most people don't know what they are missing with all the light pollution.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Because of the way our society works, it would be extremely difficult to test people who have no exposure to light during the non-naturally-lit hours. Almost everyone in America uses artificial lighting. How did you find people to test your theories on?
There are a number of labs in the world that utilize temporal isolation environments to isolate their human subjects for long periods of time (three months has been the limit I think). All temporal cues are eliminated including sunlight, food, clocks, etc... for these subjects so they have no real idea for the time. In these cases, we find that humans run on a nominal 25 hour clock, meaning we tend to drift a little every 24 hour period.
I would guess that you did your studies on other animals, as it would be extremely difficult to regulate someone's lifestyle so that they only had daytime exposure to light.
Animal studies are also performed and they back up the human studies. And, yes, it is difficult in human temporal isolation studies, but quite possible.
do you find it hard to generalize your results to humans, who have specifically evolved tetra-chromatic vision to allow for better light-sight (remember, at one point in our evolutionary line, mammals were mostly nocturnal)?
Most humans are tri-chromic (red, green and blue cones subserving photopic color vision). However, there are a couple cases in the literature of non-human primate and human tetra-chromacy. But these cases appear aberrant, and I do not have references handy, but a simple search on Medline should bring them up. If you are interested in higher dimensionality of vision however, you should check out avians, reptiles and fish who see a much richer world than we could ever hope to perceive due to their much more complex retinal circuitry and spectral detection.
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Related: Has anyone ever been to MGM in Florida and done the THX sound effects studio? You sit in a pitch black room with headphones on and it sounds like you are actually getting a haircut, getting your hair blow dried (and you feel heat - but there's not any), + you get annoyed by a fly in the room ... I remember the voiceover saying that the darkness of the room tuned your senses - particularly your ears.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
A personal gripe I have is with auto dealerships. They install an white light fixtures at a density that is so excessive as to be obscene. The glow from a single dealership in my area (central texas) is visible at least 12 miles away. The arguments for doing this usually include security and safety. If this were true, I bet a full time on sight guard would be cheaper. I suspect the real reason is that any sane car buyer browses when the place is closed to avoid the sales people. Dealerships want them to look so they burn the lights all night.
True, but there are better uses for that power. My parents' water heater only turns on late at night, and then the hot water is stored for the next day. The power company controls this (for a big discount to my parents) to fill in the peak demands. They have in the past had the highest useable for the entire day be at 12:14am, when a lot of the load was this water heating!
That is just one example use for all that power. There are others. Start thinking.
I work in an avian visual cognition lab. :)
Cool. A fellow vision scientist.
we see a very rich world that they cannot as well - the world of figures and space. Humans are extremely good at mapping patterns out of specifics and matching them to previously seen objects and figures. We're very good at detecting relationships.
True, but this is cognition, and that requires cortex which humans have in abundance. I guess I was speaking from retinal and optical perspectives for which humans are relatively recent evolutionarily speaking.
Your post seemed to indicate that you have done such isolation of humans.
I've actually only done one such study for a gene isolation project back when I was doing sleep studies.
was just wondering how *your* lab specifically found that a number of subjects with overexposure to light had significant decline in function.
I am actually a retinal scientist now and my time spent running the sleep lab was a few years ago. However, when I was doing the sleep studies, we were not involved in temporal isolation studies. Rather, we were a clinical lab that specialized in helping folks with sleep disordered breathing, parasomnias, nocturnal epilepsies etc....
If human beings are finding negative consequences in the long term for overexposure to light and light-related activities, why do we continue to persue them?
Money.
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....especially in the winter. Downtown lights up low hanging clouds and gives us a nice well lit evening. It's really nice when walking at home at 10pm in the evenin. Then again, though, on winter days the sun sets before 5pm.
...um, what exactly are these "star" things you mention?
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
You're very correct that I was, myself, playing on the sensationalist side of things by saying that their thesis was 'death due to too much (any kind of) light.'
FYI, I did read the article completely before posting (Thank you for the RTFA comments).
I agree that my conclusion, that this article is bogus, wasn't well supported with the evidence I posted.
My conclusion came from the facts that:
My conclusion (which is generally accepted by the above comments) is that this article is a giant non-sequitur.
I wrote the parent post far too quickly & I didn't proof-read it to make sure my conclusion was supported by my evidence & that my own evidence was correctly presented. (note to self...)
Just about everyone supported my conclusion, but nobody understood how I arrived at it.
A few years back there was a report that night lights left on in childrens' bedrooms could lead to short-sightedness. A later report told us all not to worry.
Phil