Chemists Discover How Blue Light Speeds Blindness

Isao writes: It (apparently) has been known that blue light damages eyes and accelerates macular degeneration. A new article on Phys.org may have identified how this happens. It seems that unlike other light colors, blue causes a necessary molecule (retinal) to permanently kill photoreceptor cells. "The researcher found that a molecule called alpha Tocopherol, a Vitamin E derivative and a natural antioxidant in the eye and body, stops the cells from dying," reports Phys.org. "However, as a person ages or the immune system is suppressed, people lose the ability to fight against the attack by retinal and blue light." The authors will continue their research and recommend filtering and blue-light reduction in the meantime. The study has been published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Comments

The other thing that makes u blind

[Anonymous Coward]

is when u suck my DAMN balls and I nut in ur eye

Rose colored glasses

[jfdavis668]

Ok, from now on I'm looking at the world through rose colored glasses. That should stop all that blue light business.

Re:Rose colored glasses

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had the goggles for a few years now, slacked off on wearing them. "The goggles (don't) do nothing!"

Re:Rose colored glasses

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG! I drink Blue Light. No wonder my eyesight is fucked. Maybe I better switch to Coors Light.

Re: Rose colored glasses

[bobmagicii]

rip anyone whose fav colour is blue. go go red. suck it blues!

Re:Rose colored glasses

[AmiMoJo]

I first got some prescription glasses with blue light filter in Japan maybe a decade ago, and now I see they are becoming available in Europe.

They do rose tint everything but it's subtle. My most recent pair I didn't bother, I just set my monitor calibration to be off-white. I'd say the rose tented glasses work better though, I'll get some next time.

Re:Rose colored glasses

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, from now on I'm looking at the world through rose colored glasses. That should stop all that blue light business.

Technically, it would, because tinted lenses (not the ones which are merely dark) do block blue light if they're the right kind of tint and lens.

I've worn orange lenses outside for most of the last 20 years, precisely because they do block blue light. In addition, you get boosted colour contrast and can actually see better in most lighting conditions.

For twilight or in the rain, I keep a set of yellow-lensed glasses in my glove box of my car, because they cut down the glare as well as blocking out some of the harsher light from street lights. It's amazing how much of a difference they make.

Blue light makes your eyes dilate more, screws up your night vision, and apparently causes damage to your eyes.

You jest, but with the right kind of glasses, you can block the blue light from hitting your eyes. I rarely go out without sunglasses (even on cloudy days because there's still lots of UV scatter), and all of mine are all chosen to block blue light.

Re:Rose colored glasses

[PPH]

There was an upside to electing a president with orange hair! Who knew?

Re:Rose colored glasses

[Anonymous Coward]

>_ There was an upside to electing a president with orange hair! Who knew?

Those who elected that guy are already blind.

Excellent

[rmdingler]

Light activatable G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs), also known as opsins, harvest light through their covalently bound chromophore 11-cis retinal (11CR), an aldehyde derivative of vitamin A1,2.

Thanks again, /. Covalently... a new word to insert in otherwise innocuous conversation to thwart my intelligent friends' belief that they might be my mental equal.

Re:Excellent

[ls671]

As well, I am not sure what blue light means in this context. Does this mean that blue screens of death make you blind?

Re:Excellent

[Khyber]

"Covalently... a new word to insert in otherwise innocuous conversation to thwart my intelligent friends' belief that they might be my mental equal."

So, you failed high school chemistry. Not very intelligent to begin with if you didn't know that word before.

Re:Excellent

[rmdingler]

Not necessarily, though it does inure you to the possibility that the theoretical protection of the user interface is more important than individual satisfaction with its implementation.

Re:Excellent

[rmdingler]

Hell, I didn't know the word Khyber before Slashdot.

Re:Excellent

[mikael]

Blue light in this context is just that - regular blue pixels on a computer screen. There are night-safe modes which tone down these pixels.

Your retinas has around seven layers of rods, cones and processing neurons. Light is refracted through the lens so that infra-red light hits blood vessels, red light which has a longer wavelength and travels less deeper into the retina hits the upper layers. Blue light in this context is goes into the deepest layer of the retina because the wavelength is shorter and has more energy. UV light gets filtered out by the lens (but causes cataracts in the long term).

Re: Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

I understood that I believe.

Iâ(TM)m cranking up the blue light in order to harmonize my thetans.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

to thwart my intelligent friends' belief that they might be my mental equal.

I used to do it by explaining that the word forte is properly pronounced like "fort" not "for-tay", as it is French in origin. Of course all you knuckleheads have now made "for-tay" an acceptable pronunciation.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought that forte was Italian as in forte, fortissimo, piano (the inverse), pianissimo. In which case it would be "for-teh" ("for-tay")
I'm French and in French forte is not a noun, it's the feminine of "strong". So whatever the origin you're debating a word which does not exist in French.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

You failed life Khyber threatening DAs and others with blackmail and physical harm breaking laws https://slashdot.org/comments.... considering you're a known admitted felon recidivist mentalcase drunk drug addict.

Re:Excellent

[rmdingler]

Heh heh

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

The musical dynamic "forte", meaning loud, is Italian and pronounced with two syllables. It is rarely used in English outside of the context of music performance.

The same spelling "forte" is used to denote an area in which an individual excels (a "strength"). It does come from French but is commonly pronounced either the same way as the musical term, or with one syllable, the same way as "fort" (a "stronghold").

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm French and in French forte is not a noun, it's the feminine of "strong".

It's a borrowed word, rooted in Latin, passed through Fench (the Italian word has the same spelling but isn't the origin in English) ... yes, it means "strength", and won't exactly correspond to a French word. Basically it was borrowed and turned into a noun.

Same as a "fort" or a "fortification" come from the French word fort for "strong". Someone's "forte" is one of their strengths.

Oddly enough, if I google for "origin of word forte", I get a fairly detailed etymology of the word, but no actual link to follow which has the same content, so apparently Google has some fancy new etymology thing in their search results ... probably as a result of Google translate or something.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

This speaks more to how desperately boring it gets at large tech companies.

Re:Excellent

[Khyber]

Hey, look, I found APKs little buddy!

How are you doing, little child?

Slashdot anonymity is broken, moron. How do you think I found APK and his mother's addresses?

What a pathetic AC. Doesn't even realize they're already exposed.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up you squawking little queer bitch drug addict felon loser. What's your problem? Your gay husband leave you or getting sodomy from other men? Tell him to cork you up your ass like you like and calm down squawking bitch! You must be the bitch in your unnatural grotesque 'marriage'. You squawk like one and are built like one all 130 pounds of whimp you. The only thing you can find is drugs and booze you take to make you act like the fucked up lunatic you are all twisted queer.

Re:Excellent

[HornWumpus]

If it hasn't reduced to 'fart wars' in the cube farm, they're not really bored.

We got to Kimchi, PBR and hard boiled eggs, stopped after that, someone was going to get hurt.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in Riverside where Alex McQuown alias Khyber is from. People in this city despise him because he caused his parents so much grief constantly bailing his ass out of jail and backing his screwed up business ideas like his latest jewelry stupidity he is not profiting on soon to fail. He is a known loser and psychotic maniac! I drink in the same bar and he makes a complete ass of himself there constantly.

Re: Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry but untrue. Khyber regularly got his sphincter "stretched" from what I understand and he has a gay husband (abnormal sodomites). His post history shows violent tendencies as does his crminal record of extortion of a DA and people here on this forum. His husband must be cheating on him judging by his bad attitude and he takes it out on others. See his parent post here and his post history and tell me I am wrong. There is something very wrong and negative about Khyber. I suspect his lover/husband is cheating on him from his negativity which from what I read in his post history he compounds further with alcohol and drugs.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, I like to go in detail into such little topic.
So, research tell there's no definite pronunciation or even "satisfying" pronunciation. In any way it couldn't be spelled "fort" as this clashes with the castle-like meaning (this word is also a word in French)

Now, how matter pointless I'll tell you that the "e" in a French word like "forte" is an empty vowel, a schwa. Despite being an empty vowel we pronounce it somehow. So that makes it two syllables. What about "fort"? It's one syllable, but it's pronounced as "for". Hence, a damn silent letter. The damn language has almost no stress accent whatsoever so when something is pronounced everything is pronounced equally.

And here I thought...

[Anonymous Coward]

my blindness had something to do with my hairy palms.

Re:And here I thought...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are your palms blue?

Re:And here I thought...

[rmdingler]

Or my palms are, perhaps, busy remedying the azure state of another bodily part.

Re:And here I thought...

[Anonymous Coward]

Too many blue movies.

Well, that's all of us done for

[BoogieChile]

Back to the old amber CRT, then

Re:Well, that's all of us done for

[Anonymous Coward]

That one emits (some) x-rays which fry your retinas AND your brain in the long term...

Re:Well, that's all of us done for

[Anonymous Coward]

Back to the old amber CRT, then

Or, really, install f.lux, and set it to shift to cooler colour temperatures during the day, and let it go deeper in the evening. It's a brilliant piece of software, and will change the colour temperature of your monitor throughout the day, and dim as the evening goes on.

You will be amazed at how much of a difference it makes by skewing those colours a little. Not so good if you're doing stuff which needs perfectly accurate colours, but it can be disabled if you need. It also has an awesome darkroom mode which turns it to red on black.

I've got it on every system I use, and wouldn't want to go back. If I was to turn it off, my monitor would be blindingly white/blue to me now.

So, yeah, shifting towards the red/amber end of the spectrum is actually what you want.

Re:Well, that's all of us done for

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, replace the LED light sources in your LCD monitors with 10 year old tech called CCFL and you're done -- no more eyestrain due to the unnatural blue light generated by LEDs.

Why the heck did they stop manufacturing CCFL LCD monitors?

Re:Well, that's all of us done for

[Anonymous Coward]

Good thing the glass is leaded and there's multiple safeties against dangerous X-ray emissions

Re:Well, that's all of us done for

[ChrisMaple]

CCFL is inferior because of cost, high voltage drivers, fading, and eventual failure. LEDs can be more efficient.

Gonna really suck for saltwater tanks/ grow lights

[Khyber]

Topic says it all. LED ones are especially blue-heavy (up to 80% of the overall output in saltwater reef tanks) and that's gotta cause some issues.

Correlation

[Anonymous Coward]

If this is real, then there should be a correlation to the rise in macular degeneration since the introduction of the blue led.

passphrase : spotty

Re:Correlation

[Khyber]

No, as at the time of the introduction of the blue LED, efficiency and output was horrible, and even an incandescent light of equal power consumption output more light below the 470nm range than the LED did.

Around the early 2000s is when blue LEDs began to gain in efficiency to the point where they were commercially viable for use in just about any consumer product.

I'd suggest starting to look around 1997-2004 for the beginning of an increasing trend.

Re:Correlation

[drinkypoo]

It's not about light output, it's about cost. When blue LEDs became cheap, everyone and their mom started using them for power indicators. They didn't have to produce otherwise useful amounts of light for that. They just had to be affordable in quantity.

Re:Correlation

[Anonymous Coward]

This blue light experiment is just getting started. It will play out over the next couple of decades. I've added blue light filters to all my screens. Am trying to figure out how to remove that wavelength from the rest of my home lighting. It kills sleep too.

Re:Correlation

[Anonymous Coward]

This poster is exactly right. Blue LEDs skyrocketed in that timeframe.

As an avid computer user, I would be very interested in any research about eye disease trends in this timeframe.

I'm searching and will post anything I find.

Re:Correlation

[Khyber]

No, it was about light output, as anything that could put out decent blue light even for indicators at the time just simply didn't exist until the almost mid-90s. Read about Shuji Nakamura, Nichia, and the creation of the gallium-arsenide blue LED which drove the LED industry into its heights that it is seeing today.

Re:Correlation

[DamnOregonian]

Na. It was definitely about cost. I worked on 3 projects in the time period where that phenomenon took off.
We used blue lights because they looked cool, and had finally stopped costing $6 an LED.

Re:Correlation

[DamnOregonian]

I can say that in the projects I worked on, one of which was commercialized, it was solely about price, as you said.
We wanted them because they looked fucking cool, we didn't use them because they were insanely expensive. Once they were cheap- we used them everywhere we could... again, because they looked awesome. Blue LEDs had an otherworldly glow about them.

Go black and don't look back (if you still can!)

[Anonymous Coward]

Light text on black (not 'dark' -- BLACK!). Black text on white is CRAZY, EDDIE!

Blue light isn't the issue, getting old is...

[cyn1c77]

The blurb (and even the article) is jaded and implies that blue light causes blindness to ride the anti-screen wave.

If you read it, you find that the issue is actually that the body makes alpha Tocopherol, a Vitamin E derivative, which keeps the photoreceptor cells from dying. Some people lose the ability to make that alpha Tocopherol as they age, leading to blindness.

So the issue isn't to avoid blue light and buy crazy glasses... (how are you really going to avoid blue light if you ever want to see white again anyway? Are you going to stop looking at white paper?) Rather it's to find a way to keep supplying alpha Tocopherol to the eye as people age.

Re:Blue light isn't the issue, getting old is...

[Alsn]

That's true. However it could also mean that in the meantime the people who suffer from the deficiency could use filter glasses to keep their sight until a permanent treatment is discovered. Assuming that their findings are correct and that blue light is the only culprit.

Re:Blue light isn't the issue, getting old is...

[Khyber]

"Some people lose the ability to make that alpha Tocopherol as they age, leading to blindness."

Did you just quit reading AND thinking there? Next bit clearly states that people with compromised immune systems or weakened ones from disease are also susceptible. Guess what a hospital is loaded with? Hint: Look all around one, and then look up.

We also know (I've been fucking saying this for almost a decade, now, when I was doing global horticultural lighting design) that grow lighting is triggering macular degeneration in younger healthier population. This doesn't mean your mom and pop in their 50s+, this is happening as early as a persons 20s.

Re:Blue light isn't the issue, getting old is...

[Greyfox]

DMSO Tocopherol eyedrops a couple times a week? I suppose someone'll have to do a study on exactly how safe DMSO would be for eyeballs over long periods of time.

Re:Blue light isn't the issue, getting old is...

[mentil]

No, no, you have to inject it directly into the eye twice daily. Good thing, I'm terrible at using eyedrops without blinking.

Re:Blue light isn't the issue, getting old is...

[iTrawl]

I've been fucking saying this for almost a decade, now

Citation needed? Preferably in a scientific journal.

Re:Blue light isn't the issue, getting old is...

[AmiMoJo]

Also, blue light is linked to disruption of sleep.

I wish Slashdot had a dark theme.

Re:Blue light isn't the issue, getting old is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Threatening district attorneys and people with blackmail and physical harm you threaten is breaking laws Khyber https://slashdot.org/comments.... considering you're a known admitted felon recidivist mentalcase drunk drug addict.

Re:Blue light isn't the issue, getting old is...

[PPH]

Are you going to stop looking at white paper?

To an extent, your brain compensates for variations in ambient lighting. With reduced blue wavelengths, you will still perceive white paper as white. And reading is more dependent on contrast anyway. White paper vs black ink (or blue ink, which will look black) under red night vision lighting is still readable.

Re:Blue light isn't the issue, getting old is...

[DamnOregonian]

The blurb (and even the article) is jaded and implies that blue light causes blindness to ride the anti-screen wave.

Objection: Speculation

If you read it, you find that the issue is actually that the body makes alpha Tocopherol, a Vitamin E derivative, which keeps the photoreceptor cells from dying. Some people lose the ability to make that alpha Tocopherol as they age, leading to blindness.

That's certainly part of the article.

That wasn't even the notable part- the notable part was that blue-light activated retinol is shown to by highly cytotoxic, and that there is a known statistical trend between age and your ability to get Tocopherol to the places it needs to be, which strongly correlates with the kinds of macular degeneration that are also highly age-correlated.

So the issue isn't to avoid blue light and buy crazy glasses... (how are you really going to avoid blue light if you ever want to see white again anyway? Are you going to stop looking at white paper?) Rather it's to find a way to keep supplying alpha Tocopherol to the eye as people age.

You're actually inserting your own bias into the paper, and you're too stupid to see it.
They make it quite clear that you can't avoid blue light, and it would be even more ridiculous to think that finding a solution to age-related Tocopherol transport issues would be within the scope of that paper.

In short, they're not riding the anti-screen wave, you're just virulently opposed to it, and are viewing everything you read with... blue colored glasses?

Re:Blue light isn't the issue, getting old is...

[Sark666]

But blue light above any other light, regulates are circadian rhythm.

Re: Blue light isn't the issue, getting old is...

[Anonymous Coward]

You change from RGB to CMYK

Re:Blue light isn't the issue, getting old is...

[Khyber]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

That's from 2006, before I started designing and selling horticultural LED lighting, from the British Journal of Ophthalmology.

Re:Blue light isn't the issue, getting old is...

[Anonymous Coward]

I really don't give a fuck about their record and that isn't germane to this thread. Someone has to put the dicks that are fucking us all in their place. Since you won't do it, you shut up, remain a coward, and let him fuck his own life up.

Re:Blue light isn't the issue, getting old is...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2016/06/15/more-on-scientific-reports-and-on-faked-papers

Just leaving that there for your consideration

Re:Blue light isn't the issue, getting old is...

[Anonymous Coward]

We also know (I've been fucking saying this for almost a decade, now, when I was doing global horticultural lighting design) that grow lighting is triggering macular degeneration in younger healthier population.

That link doesn't support your claim.

Re:Blue light isn't the issue, getting old is...

[DamnOregonian]

Actually, yes it does. Try reading it next time.

Re:Blue light isn't the issue, getting old is...

[ChrisMaple]

IIRC, the body does not synthesize alpha tocopherol, one of the 8 forms of vitamin E. Being essential to human health and the body not being able to synthesize it is part of what qualifies a substance for being a vitamin.

Alpha tocopherol is available as a cheap supplement; if you buy vitamin E whose makeup is unspecified, it's going to be mostly alpha tocopherol.

Gamma tocopherol helps the body recycle alpha tocopherol.

Do your own research, this is from memory.

Re:Blue light isn't the issue, getting old is...

[Swave An deBwoner]

I just installed this chrome extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/negative-revert-web-color/ohhfjfhanfnmmolddbjhfkogappmbndd and so far at least it's not bad at all.

We're in an old villa and use "Warm white" bulbs..

[ClarkMills]

We're in an old villa and use "Warm white" bulbs as it looks odd not to architecturally. They are on the redder (actually cooler 3000K) end of the spectrum to emulate your classic tungsten filament lighting. Not the best for reading resistor bands but at least I'll have my eyesight a bit longer... And hey, maybe my wake/sleep cycles will be better than the "Daylight" (6500K, bluer) colour balanced bulbs that everyone is using now.

It's harmful only if you already have a problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

FTA: "The researcher found that a molecule called alpha tocoferol, a Vitamin E derivative and a natural antioxidant in the eye and body, stops the cells from dying. However, as a person ages or the immune system is suppressed, people lose the ability to fight against the attack by retinal and blue light."

Re:It's harmful only if you already have a problem

[magarity]

So as soon as I figure out how to stop aging I won't have this issue?

6500K streetlights

[beerlord1]

Are definitely a bad idea. When do the lawsuits start against cities that installed them?

Re:6500K streetlights

[Anonymous Coward]

Street lamps raise an interesting dilemma. Like many things in life, it's not a simple problem. Turns out that while our eyes are less sensitive to blue, we actually see blue better in low light conditions. It takes several factors fewer lumens of white light to illuminate the road compared to sulphur lighting. While day light lighting increases road safety at night, it comes at the cost of messing with sleep cycles.

Re:Go black and don't look back (if you still can!

[Anonymous Coward]

-bg black -fg gray85

Because The Man says so.

Re: It's harmful only if you already have a proble

[Anonymous Coward]

You have not figured out how to stop aging yet?

Renew! And live again.

Beware the blue sky

[Anonymous Coward]

As pretty as it is, it will make you go blind. Remember the saying not to stare at the sun, well don't stare at the sky either. It is the same wavelength that is implicated in macular degeneration.

Better yet stay inside and not go outside. The UV rays will give you skin cancer. You could get Zika or West Nile virus from mosquitos. Besides, there is plenty of entertainment on television, the internet, and on movie sites.

Dance my puppets, dance. /sarcasm

Time to switch to green CRTs

[OrangeTide]

Time to throw away all this 4K HDR LCD garbage and go back to good old monochrome.

P.S. - Does anyone know how I can hook up a Hercules ISA card to PCIe?

Re:Time to switch to green CRTs

[drinkypoo]

P.S. - Does anyone know how I can hook up a Hercules ISA card to PCIe?

No need, you can hook it up to USB. It would be easier, though, to get a display card with a VGA output and fix the cable to omit the blue line. You'd still get colors, just not as many, and none of them would be at all blue.

Re:Time to switch to green CRTs

[OrangeTide]

That USB adapter hack is pretty crazy. The way backlights work some amount of blue light makes it through, but maybe it isn't enough to matter.

There are screen filters in common use that block blue light, as people have considered it to contribute to eye strain and fatigue for many years. It doesn't totally filter blue light, but it attenuates it significantly.

Re:Time to switch to green CRTs

[Anonymous Coward]

They sure knew about this effect on Krypton, according to the new Superman historical documents. Mechanical 3D-displays are the future!

Re:Time to switch to green CRTs

[drinkypoo]

Well, I'd propose you do use a CRT, just not a monochrome one. It's getting harder to find good cheap used ones, though, and I've gotten rid of all of mine because they take up too much space... Gonna have to live with some leakage.

Re:We're in an old villa and use "Warm white" bulb

[Nethead]

Nice to see that someone is still messing with resistors that have bands. You must like the old cruft like I do. My issue is the focus now. Many many years ago I was able to solder a 40 pin flat pack without glasses. Now I'm lucky to find the damn iron without technological assistance.

really? blue light?

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the sky blue? And if it is, doesn't this mean that this study is slightly incorrect?

Re:really? blue light?

[Anonymous Coward]

The early morning sky and the evening sky are pretty decent for your health. The orange and red wavelengths get through and repair the damage caused by the blue which is most intense at mid-day. Angle of the sun/amount of atmosphere the light has to get through...

Re:really? blue light?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Blue" may also include UV and higher frequencies of blue not found in other light sources.

Re:really? blue light?

[PPH]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the sky blue?

We're not sure. I don't think anyone on Slashdot has ever seen the sky and reported back. We ought to mount an expedition out of our parents' basements. For research purposes.

Re:really? blue light?

[Sperbels]

We're not evolutionarily engineered to survive long enough for this to matter.

WRONG !

[Anonymous Coward]

The blurb (and even the article) is jaded and implies that blue light causes blindness to ride the anti-screen wave.

You can say whatever you want, but the truth is BLUE LIGHT HURTS THE RETINA

I did not know that before my retina was damaged (caused by an abrupt change of pressure due to deep sea diving)

The retina of both my eyes were damaged - left eye gone completely dark - and after the many operations I regained only partial sight on my left eye

Now, every time I go into a room with blue light shining both my eyes hurt

It has nothing to do with alpha Tocopherol --- as I am still in my 20's and my body can still produce enough alpha Tocopherol

It is that POWER came with blue light that hurts the eye

Re:We're in an old villa and use "Warm white" bulb

[markdavis]

>"We're in an old villa and use "Warm white" bulbs as it looks odd not to architecturally. They are on the redder (actually cooler 3000K) end of the spectrum to emulate your classic tungsten filament lighting. "

Warm/soft white is more like 2700K, which is traditional tungsten lighting. Bright white is around 3000K, cool white around 4100K, day light is around 5000K. I will admit to still buying and using mostly warm white and a bit of bright white in my house, with nothing colder. I can't seem to get used to the colder temperatures, residentially, no matter how popular it seems to be. It is just too harsh at night/evening and not pleasing.

More evidence we arent from this planet

[Anonymous Coward]

Planet is mostly water we are land based
Planet has blue skys, this damages our eyes...
We breath Oxygen, planet only has 20.95% oxygen in air..
We have zero respect for the planet, just like tourists..

One more strike against streetlights

[Anonymous Coward]

This year I moved out from where I lived, I couldn't stand the light when stepping outside. That and this place was the pioneer in the town's violent lighting and cameras. I think this lighting is about treating us like criminals. Though, if you're alone and confronted with petty criminals in a small street you can't hide at all or pretend you've not noticed them since 100% everything is seen in bright light.
I haven't seen a star in years.
Most streets, they'd be fine with every other lamp turned off.

Of course, high K white LEDs consists in two peaks, a yellow one and a blue one.

Re:We're in an old villa and use "Warm white" bulb

[labnet]

I feel you brother.
Used to be able solder 0603 resistors with my 5cm super eyes. Now my arms are getting to short!

Re:We're in an old villa and use "Warm white" bulb

[bickerdyke]

I love my tuneable white bulbs. have set up a script to match daylight during day and the old fashioned tungsten in the evenings.

Amber colored glasses

[Solandri]

The amber glasses used by shooters work by blocking blue light. The lens in your eye is a simple lens, so suffers from chromatic aberration. It does not focus the different colors of light onto the exact same spot. So what you see can be sharpened by blocking one end of the visible spectrum - red or blue. Your eyes are most sensitive to detail in green, less so in red, and suck at resolving blue. So blue light can be filtered out with very little effect on visual acuity (other than color accuracy). With less chromatic aberration, what you see appears slightly sharper.

Re:Amber colored glasses

[digitalslave]

how do we get a -1 Ignorant vote?

Re:Amber colored glasses

[Anonymous Coward]

welcome to hell...

Re: Amber colored glasses

[nowwith25percentmore]

My eyeglasses have a coating that filters blue light. OTC reading glasses are also available with same feature and 0 diopter (optically neutral) lens; can be found on Amazon.

Re:Amber colored glasses

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called a joke. You don't have to find it funny, you don't even have to like it. But please do not pretend that the person was being serious.

Re:We're in an old villa and use "Warm white" bulb

[Miamicanes]

Be glad you don't have astigmatism, or you'd find yourself in the position of being unable to see clearly without glasses (or eventually, without multifocal lenses) at ANY distance, near OR far.

Ever since roughly age 40, I've felt like I need a binocular microscope to solder anything smaller than 100-mil pitch... and depending on the part & lighting, even 100-mil has left me feeling like I'm "soldering blind" half the time. I've gotten to where I need a magnifying glass just to tell the difference between red and orange bands on a resistor, even WITH bright high-CRI lighting.

time to sue kmart

[visionlink]

for all those bluelight specials...

Re:We're in an old villa and use "Warm white" bulb

[Anonymous Coward]

40 pin flat packs? With all due respect, surely you meant 44 pin, or even 80 pin?

And end to all-white web pages?

[Tomahawk]

Will this finally put an end to all-white web pages, hopefully? And give us a less eye-straining Internet.

Re:And end to all-white web pages?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm blaming the monitor, especially TN LCD which is so prevalent on laptops. Even many TVs can't display black and on a full "black" display the grey light that is leaking through is bluish.
100Hz CRT is/was easier on the eyes.
High end LCD might be good, but it's high end (probably a major reason why iMacs and Mac laptops are popular among well off non-gamers)
There are software tools to mess with the color temperature (there's f.lux on Windows but it seems to be mild spyware, is there another?)
Maybe we should go back to screen filters like we sometimes had in the 90s

Re: It's harmful only if you already have a probl

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't cast that I am still at level 32.

Great

[nospam007]

Millions of old people will run around with orange tinted glasses in 5, 4, 3, ...

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

Millions of old people will run around with orange tinted glasses in 5, 4, 3, ...

Well, by some measures I'm an old people.

But I've been using orange tinted glasses as my go-to outdoors eyewear for about 20 years now.

They block the blue light (plus all of the UV), they improve colour contrast -- with them you can see a red flower in the middle of a green field whereas without them you can't, and they also improve vision in lower light as well as on cloudy days.

I exclusively wear orange tinted lenses during the day, but for twilight or in the rain I've got a yellow set because they work even better in low light conditions (and even when it's still dark if you commute before the sun comes up).

If you can find orange lenses, you'd be surprised at how much of an improvement they actually are in daylight. They're not common, but they do exist, and they do make a huge difference in what I can see when I'm outside.

I've been wearing them for a long time, and I wouldn't go back.

I have tritanopia

[Anonymous Coward]

, which is a form of color blindness, and cannot see blue, and cannot be affected by that. Take that, normies :)

Re:I have tritanopia

[Oswald McWeany]

, which is a form of color blindness, and cannot see blue, and cannot be affected by that. Take that, normies :)

Actually, the blue light is still going to damage your eyes- you just don't see the danger.

I doubt it.

[Viol8]

If blue light was really as bad as they make out then we'd all go blind from looking at a blue sky.

Interestingly however, the human retina can see UV light but it's blocked by the lens. However when people had replcement lenses put due to cataracts they could now see this UV (as the artificial lens didn't block it) and THIS caused some serious problems.

Re:I doubt it.

[Khyber]

"If blue light was really as bad as they make out then we'd all go blind from looking at a blue sky."

Wrong wavelength dominance. 450nm and lower is the general issue. The sky has a rough dominant peak around 483nm.

Re:I doubt it.

[DamnOregonian]

1) People don't generally spend a hell of a lot of time gazing upward
2) Peak wavelength of the blue sky is closer to green, peaking at pretty much the exact wavelength our eyes are least efficient at reacting to within our range (weird, right?)
3) The sky isn't bright. Observe a shadow sometime- that's the amount of diffuse scattered sunlight hitting you from the *entire* visible sky.

Citation needed

[sjbe]

We also know (I've been fucking saying this for almost a decade, now, when I was doing global horticultural lighting design) that grow lighting is triggering macular degeneration in younger healthier population.

Are you seriously trying to claim that all the 20 somethings that want to get "medical" marijuana are not making shit up and are actually suffering from macular degeneration? (people growing pot are almost the only people who would give a shit about grow lights in their 20s) Either cite reputable medical studies (note the plural) or I'm calling bullshit.

Re:Citation needed

[Khyber]

"Are you seriously trying to claim that all the 20 somethings that want to get "medical" marijuana are not making shit up and are actually suffering from macular degeneration?"

You must fail hard at reading as I never once mentioned anything about marijuana. Perhaps you should put the joint down, yourself.

Re:Citation needed

[Anonymous Coward]

We know what the fuck you mean when you're talking about "horticultural lighting design". We also know what kind of hypocrite you are, so of course your conservative ass works in the weed industry while demonizing it. There are a handful of labs doing grow light farming for something besides growing weed. You aren't cool enough to work for any of them.

Bye-bye Sky! Time to live like a mole.

[nurbles]

New Yorkers must have known this for a very long time ... they never look UP towards the sky, thus avoiding all of that dangerous blue coming from the sky outside.

Man

[Anonymous Coward]

Man I love, my blue-blockers!

Re:We're in an old villa and use "Warm white" bulb

[Oswald McWeany]

And hey, maybe my wake/sleep cycles will be better than the "Daylight" (6500K, bluer) colour balanced bulbs that everyone is using now.

If you really want to help your wake sleep cycle- you would have the 6500k bulbs where you spend your mornings (if indoors) and the lower K, yellower bulbs in your bedroom, and where you spend your evenings. If you use the same bulbs 24/7 you're not really having much impact on your wake/sleep cycle.

The warm white are really ...

[Anonymous Coward]

The output of the warm white is still mostly blue. They use a couple tricks to generate a narrow spectrum of red, and that mutes the blue to some degree. Normal sunlight is shaped generally like a bell, plus or minus some skew. The spectrum of LEDs and CFLs is of several narrow, bright peaks instead of continuous.

So - the "warm" factor is not as good for the eye as sunlight. There are full spectrum bulbs available that have the skewed bell curve, using coatings (theses are usually halogen bulbs tho - so run hot). Tungsten is skewed way too much into the red and infrared, so it also does not mimick sunlight.

Who wrote this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this by four grad students from the University of Toledo? I see the lead author has an MS, not a PhD, and phys.org is known for some shaky papers.

Reese's Pieces of weasel words

[epine]

It (apparently) has been known that ...

Is this the Reese's Pieces of weasel words?

In addition to the grand (quibble) passive voice, the whole question of "since when has it (apparently) been known?" was stuffed into a long, cold drawer and is presently awaiting identification from dental records.

BluBlockers sunglasses

[Anonymous Coward]

Their infomercials from the 90s right on the money. Whoâ(TM)s laughing now?!

Re:We're in an old villa and use "Warm white" bulb

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are presenting personal opinion as fact.

Fact is, 3000K is still very warm and for most people it looks yellowish. "Cool White" is absolutely not 4000K, you can even see on the label it is above 6500K.

The fact you can't get used to the color temperature used in residential buildings (which most of the time is not "cool white") should have been a clue that your personal experience does not actually reflect the average person's.

Re:We're in an old villa and use "Warm white" bulb

[Anonymous Coward]

Daylight /natural light is 4000k

cool white (blue hue) is 6500k

Re:We're in an old villa and use "Warm white" bulb

[PPH]

Wait!? Someone replaced toobs? I never got the memo.

Re:We're in an old villa and use "Warm white" bulb

[markdavis]

>"I think you are presenting personal opinion as fact."

Nope

>"Fact is, 3000K is still very warm and for most people it looks yellowish."

That might be, but the industry typically calls that color "bright white" not "warm white", which is typically 2400K to 2700K. Although it does vary by manufacturer.

> "Cool White" is absolutely not 4000K, you can even see on the label it is above 6500K."

Again, I didn't make up these terms. The lighting industry typically calls "cool white" 4000 to 5000K. 6000 to 6500K is defined as "day light".

police cruisers with blue lights

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it just me, or are the modern police cruisers with the blazing blue led light bars are just trying to blind every single driver on the road.

So, not just the Blue Screen of Death

[whitroth]

but the Blue Screen of Blindness?

Hey, maybe that starts in the mind, which explains the Zombie Apocalypse of Mobile Addiction....

RoTfLmAo: "Jan" isn't my mother stupid, lol... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

RoTfLmAo: "Jan" isn't my mother stupid, lol - that's my Dad's name (it's polish for JOHN you uncultured boor). I also know you're the one stalking me & how do I know it? The second you made your threats to me & attempting to blackmail me I called the Riverside Ca. Police & contact local law enforcement. You had better PRAY nothing happens to my place like you threaten (or worse that I catch your 'friends' you claim "help you" https://slashdot.org/comments.... because I will take a bat to their heads or shoot them, that's a promise either way) you junkie homosexual deviant felonious little girl.

APK

P.S.=> You're heading yourself to jail and yes, you're being watched by your ISP which no proxy or tor can fool so you know once your outbound matches to requests here and when those get subpoenae'd you're fucked (might as well tell you how I KNOW you're stalking me with your "lying sack of shit" https://slashdot.org/comments.... https://slashdot.org/comments.... https://slashdot.org/comments.... I've shown the law you use constantly (projecting you are the lying sack of shit no less) & yes that you STALK ME with constantly too https://news.slashdot.org/comm... https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... https://developers.slashdot.or... https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... - it is a pleasure to know you are BURYING YOURSELF once again, jailbound most likely... again! apk

Re:RoTfLmAo: "Jan" isn't my mother stupid, lol...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey APK, Khyber is making fun of you in another discussion about Windows sandboxing. Better hurry over there so you two can make total asses of each other there too.

No thanks man - I've tried to help that freak

[Anonymous Coward]

No thanks man - I've tried to help that freak despite his threats https://slashdot.org/comments.... & he's obviously got the devil on his back (giving him a nice plugging like he LIKES in his ass, lol) https://slashdot.org/comments.... & I don't bother anymore. I do things ONCE out of pity's sake and then be done w/ maniacs. I've seen guys like him (especially queers whom I think are genetic aberrations and not right but I pity them that scrambling of their defective brains) destroy themselves. Based on Khyber's criminal past (it's quite large with arrests state to state from what I've seen)? He's hopeless.

* I've got way, Way, WAY BETTER things to do w/ my time (like building programs folks here like & use for instance https://developers.slashdot.or... (& then there's "Khyber" MULTIPLE felon & from what I've read & bookmarked on him for his STALKING me? A drunk druggie homosexual w/ SERIOUS issues too...)

An obvious hatred filled waste like Alex McQuown (alias Khyber) can't be helped or saved. He's gone man. Just plain gone. I read he was sexually abused as a child and it probably led to his insanity now. A lesson to be learned in that I say.

APK

P.S.=> See the 2nd link above where I tried to tell him to get the devil off his back (I helped a GOOD FRIEND that way once) - apparently, he can't help himself and see the REASON there - & so he is heading to a jail cell inevitably again (nothing new to him) probably - I've SEEN it happen before to those like him so I avoid loons like him (they try drag you down to THEIR low level so they feel better about their pitiful failure selves)... apk

I am APK the LORD of HOSTS

[Anonymous Coward]

I am APK the great "LORD of HOSTS", a.k.a. AlecStaar or Alexander Peter Kowalski.

See subject & APK Hosts File Engine 2.0++ 64-bit for Linux h t t p : / / I . a m . a . f u c k i n g / a s s h o l e . r e t a r d . z i p (remove spaces between characters & download).

I am the godlike creator of various GUI front-ends for other people's configuration files.

One person stalks me as I shitpost and I dusted them on another site but in reality I am widely hated.

When people state the truth about me I get really mad and accuse them of projecting which is something I do all the time.

Don't call me out on anything as I will state that you are a webmaster and that I cut off your revenue stream.

You must be conspiring with the Jews and Soros if you disagree with me.

Mistaking mockery and parody for impersonation is how I think people flatter me because I can't possibly understand that they detest me.

See me lash out at one person for 2 weeks straight and claim everyone who mocks my retarded ass is actually them.

Bask in my greatness as I post my advertisements in discussions where they don't belong, by the way this is every discussion I post in.

I demand your age sex and location so that I can threaten to show up and kick your ass and will call you a pussycake but am actually too scared to actually do anything but be a keyboard warrior.

Watch as I claim I am world class and a winner but in reality I am a fucking loser.

Witness my descent into madness

APK

Mother was right

[ChatHuant]

Your mum told you long ago watching blue movies will make you blind. Well, now you know why.

Shut up you lying sack of shit

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry shit bag I'm not Khyber.

I don't threaten vs. a NOBODY

Shut your fucking pie hole you lying sack of shit.
You threaten people all the time and when called on it you hide in the fucking corner and piss yourself.
Your doing it here too you incel loser.
So come on pussycake post your fucking address

Someone had to :Man, I love these BluBlockers!

[Anonymous Coward]

Alright now I'm real fast
Let me tell you what I think of this 'a come to pass.
My name is Geek I put 'em on as a shocker
Man, I love these BluBlockers!

Everything is clear, they block out the sun.
Oh yeah, I gotta get me some.
Everything is groovy now I'm not pulling my speech.
This is what I do up and down Venice Beach.

My name is Geek I'm more than a hip-hopper
And I'll be 'chic' in my BluBlockers! Yeah... now what my mean
Yep these sun glasses are really really keen.

So there you have it folks
Out there in TV land.
Get you some glasses..
They're sweeping the land.

Remember what I said "now I'm a hip hopper"
Yeah go get you some BluBlockers.
Um, now yep its sweet
I'll see you later I gotta make some money on the beach

Re:Gonna really suck for saltwater tanks/ grow lig

[thoughtlover]

Nope, and nope.

Coral can, and do, thrive on blue light. When light hits the water's surface, and as you get deeper, certain wavelengths are absorbed by the water... the first (and at quite a low depth, comparatively) is red, second yellow, and finally blue at, roughly, 300' deep. After that, only non-photosynthetic corals can exist. Most coral growers/aquarium enthusiasts enjoy the most-actinic wavelength, blue. Most LED lights, specifically for growing coral, have arrays of pure white, red, green, and blue diodes.

I grew the hell out of many SPS, LPS, and softbodied corals with mostly the blue channel on..rarely turned on the white/red/green channel.

Fluorescent Lights

[Anonymous Coward]

Think how many eyeballs were harmed by fluorescent lights. Government strikes again!

Like you weren't Khyber "defending himself" by AC?

[Anonymous Coward]

Like you weren't Khyber "defending himself" by AC here too https://slashdot.org/comments.... ? Right you aren't (sarcasm - you ARE Khyber again)

YOU MADE A HUGE MISTAKE THREATENING ME HERE https://slashdot.org/comments.... & ANYONE I merely addressed in TURN when DIRECTED @ me by UNIDENTIFIABLE anonymous you use STALKING ME? Isn't threatening ANYONE real, period. That is, UNLESS your name is "Anonymous Coward" on your birth certificate stupid.

& WHO ALWAYS SAYS what you did now too in "Lying Sack of Shit"? YOU DO Khyber & yes, Khyber/Alex McQuown I KNOW you're stalking me with your "lying sack of shit" YOU PROJECTED & PROVE YOU ARE even NOW https://slashdot.org/comments....

https://slashdot.org/comments....

https://slashdot.org/comments....

In those links above I've shown the law you use constantly "lying sack of shit" UNDER YOUR REGISTERED ACCOUNT & yes that you STALK ME with constantly too DOING THE SAME "Lying sack of shit" in the post I just replied to AND these examples (only partial) https://news.slashdot.org/comm... https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... https://developers.slashdot.or... https://tech.slashdot.org/comm...

Why do you speak as me & you're not I?

[Anonymous Coward]

See my subject & answer that: & Why do you also STALK me by UNIDENTIFIABLE anonymous posts as well? AFRAID to stand behind your lies??

* THIS I have to hear, lol - it WILL truly be a classic I'm sure!

(CAT GOT YOUR TONGUE SUDDENLY? You wouldn't answer LAST TIME I ASKED IT + YOU DOWNMOD "HID" IT (the sure sign of YOUR total SELF-defeat) https://it.slashdot.org/commen... )

Plus, since you say I'm the "Lord of Hosts"? My "portrait" https://365songsblog.files.wor... (lol) so SATAN, get thee behind me!

APK

P.S.=> Grow up you obsessed loon who not only IMPERSONATES me but also STALKS me by UNIDENTIFIABLE anonymous posts constantly... apk

Blue screen of death!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not just a metaphor!