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Fireflies Bring Us Brighter LEDs
Zothecula writes "Fireflies have helped an international team of scientists get over 50 percent more light out of existing LED bulbs. It was discovered that in the Photuris genus of firefly, scales in the insect's exoskeleton possess optical qualities that boost the amount of bioluminescence that can shine through. Those same qualities were found to dramatically increase the light output of an LED bulb."
It's basically a misleading headline.
Sort of like an advertising campaign a few years back, which compared a mouthwash to 'brushing alone' - which when you went into the small print was comparing it against brushing with no toothpaste.
The picture shows a bare die LED.
LEDs are basically never used like this, they always have a silicone or epoxy cover, which better matches the refractive index of the led die, so more light gets out.
Is this useful in some cases, perhaps, and may inspire some modifications. But the flat figure is misleading,
50% of light is _not_ lost at the moment in most designs of led.
So thanks to fireflies I can have even brighter, more obnoxious headlights on my car.
HIDs =/= LEDs.
But yes, expect more insanely bright and poorly adjusted headlights on cars.
I always thought that for most driving, done in urban areas, headlights were so the car could be seen, not to see with. That's what street lamps are for.
Once away from street lamps (and oncoming traffic), then lights can and should be as bright as possible IMHO.
Evolution is hardly simple compared to (to use the popular atheist pejorative) "goddidit".
"Goddidit" in isolation is simple. But then accounting for all the mental hoops one needs to take to create a semi-reasonable model with an omnipotent creator being, it becomes progressively more complex.
Fortunately, Occam's Razor doesn't, and never did, say the slightest thing about what is true, rather only what is pragmatic for use when presented with otherwise-equivalent models.
Of course. When presented with a choice between "this simple process did it", "an unseen creator did it, then put a lot of hints to the contrary in the ground" and more intricate theories like "the Teapot made the creator do that", it's pragmatic to choose the first one. I'm willing to change my mind when evidence that disproves evolution or evidence for intelligent creator or evidence for Teapot surfaces.
Every end has half a stick.