Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Daily blue light shortens lifespan, causes brain neurodegeneration in Drosophila

nature.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 91 posts

Re: Daily blue light shortens lifespan, causes brain neurodegeneration in Drosophila

#11

Post by dang »

All: we've compressed the title in order to make space for the fruit flies. Now it is no longer baity.

This result is interesting in its own right, so hopefully the thread can proceed to talking about other bits than baity titles and insects not being mammals.

Re: Daily blue light shortens lifespan, causes brain neurodegeneration in Drosophila

#13

Post by camgunz »

I made a (what most people would consider terrible) vim color scheme that has no blue light in it (it's like an old amber terminal). Initially I thought I would hate it and switch back in a couple days/weeks, but I actually find it very nice, and switching to anything w/ blue light or a "normal color scheme" with blues and greens now weirdly feels like an assault. Feel free to give it a whirl: https://github.com/camgunz/amber

Re: Daily blue light shortens lifespan, causes brain neurodegeneration in Drosophila

#15

Post by jacob019 »

jszymborski wrote: post #14

The report also states that flies living with blue LEDs with yellow filters lived more-or-less as long as the flies grown in darkness. That's rather comforting to me as most if not all LED fixtures have these.

White LED light is produced by a narrowband blue LED chip (450-460nm) coated with a wideband yellow phosphor (green-red). It's additive, the spectrum is built up. Some of the blue light is converted by the phospor. You are most certainly exposed to the blue light. Those flies were exposed to too much and for too long. This study starts with the premise that blue light is harmful and fails to demonstrate anything.

Re: Daily blue light shortens lifespan, causes brain neurodegeneration in Drosophila

#16

Post by heyoni »

lettergram wrote: post #4

Their model animal is a fly (Drosophila). I can imagine that impacting the claims significantly. Insects and mammals differ quite a lot. I wouldn’t expect the same results in mammals (or any animals really).

Sure, except that drosophila are animals and we have a lot more in common with them than you think, especially when looking at more primal systems. Our intrinsic immune system was discovered in fruit flies, look up the Toll pathway.

Re: Daily blue light shortens lifespan, causes brain neurodegeneration in Drosophila

#18

Post by Razengan »

lettergram wrote: post #4

Their model animal is a fly (Drosophila). I can imagine that impacting the claims significantly. Insects and mammals differ quite a lot. I wouldn’t expect the same results in mammals (or any animals really).

> Insects and mammals differ quite a lot.

They can still be merged in teleportation accidents.

Re: Daily blue light shortens lifespan, causes brain neurodegeneration in Drosophila

#19

Post by miccah »

camgunz wrote: post #13

I made a (what most people would consider terrible) vim color scheme that has no blue light in it (it's like an old amber terminal). Initially I thought I would hate it and switch back in a couple days/weeks, but I actually find it very nice, and switching to anything w/ blue light or a "normal color scheme" with blues and greens now weirdly feels like an assault. Feel free to give it a whirl: https://github.com/camg…

Looks cool, thanks for sharing. It reminds me of the Portal 1 credits screen.

Re: Daily blue light shortens lifespan, causes brain neurodegeneration in Drosophila

#20

Post by hyperpallium »

camgunz wrote: post #13

I made a (what most people would consider terrible) vim color scheme that has no blue light in it (it's like an old amber terminal). Initially I thought I would hate it and switch back in a couple days/weeks, but I actually find it very nice, and switching to anything w/ blue light or a "normal color scheme" with blues and greens now weirdly feels like an assault. Feel free to give it a whirl: https://github.com/camg…

Installation instructions, for those with Drosophila-like memory (like me):

  $ md ~/.vim/colors
  $ cd ~/.vim/colors
  $ curl -LO https://github.com/camgunz/amber/raw/master/colors/amber.vim
  $ vim amber.vim
in vim

  :colorscheme amber
  :set background=light
  :set background=dark
I like the look of it, though the syntax highlighting isn't as distinguishing as default (for java).

BTW: I code on a phone, and set the colour temperature to warm (at night; cold during day).

Post reply on HN