Slashdot Mirror


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.

2 of 144 comments (clear)

  1. Re:We're in an old villa and use "Warm white" bulb by Nethead · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    --
    -- I have a private email server in my basement.
  2. Amber colored glasses by Solandri · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.