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Daily blue light shortens lifespan, causes brain neurodegeneration in Drosophila

nature.com

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

#21
post #10
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the amount of blue (and every other visible wavelength) light the Sun puts out it seems like evolution should have handled this by now.

It more or less has in mammals... though it's kind of swung the other way. Sunlight is required to produce Vitamin D, which it turns out is pretty darn important. The catch is that most people don't get enough sunlight exposure to produce enough vitamin D.

I read somewhere that getting vitamin D is easier through sunlight than people think.

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

#22
post #21
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It more or less has in mammals... though it's kind of swung the other way. Sunlight is required to produce Vitamin D, which it turns out is pretty darn important. The catch is that most people don't get enough sunlight exposure to produce enough vitamin D.

I read somewhere that getting vitamin D is easier through sunlight than people think.

Of course it also depends on your pigmentation and where you live.

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

#23
Anyone care to do a nice graph showing all the tested possibilities?

Being in total darkness was the best? and by how much compared to light with blue removed?

It's also possible it's due to the retinal damage which caused early mortality?

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

#24
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…

Somewhat similar to my terminal text color code. Mine is FCAF3E on 150C0C background, which I find a bit more neutral and gentle to the eyes. The secret is to avoid pure or saturated colors which I found sometimes can be a punch in the eye, so I usually start with a color then lower its intensity and add a bit of the others to make it less hard to look at.

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

#25
Blue (and any high energy light) is known to facilitate radical formation, redox and other electronic transitions, hence "ionizing radiation". It breaks chemical bonds. Fruit flies are small enough to be translucent to visible light. It is not unreasonable to think that blue photons wreak chemical havoc in the bodies of small bugs, not unlike x-rays in mammals.

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

#26
Insects aside, I realized there was something wrong about blue light much before any articles appeared about its negative effects on our circadian cycles. It was nearly 20 years back when I bought some of the then young blue and white leds to make some experiments with them, and I quickly realized I hated blue ones. No matter how I reduced the current through them, their light made me feel uncomfortable and didn't like as well cold white ones because they emit more blue light than warm white leds. I still have in a drawer those 10 leds I bought, none of them was ever used in any project. Unfortunately lots of gadgets appeared in the early 2k and they all used blue leds which were going to become the standard pretty much everywhere. It was then when I realized how much and why I disliked that light: it made me nervous; I couldn't stare at a blue led light, especially the bright ones, for some time without feeling anxiety. Then one day I read about how blue light affects us negatively and went "aha!". Now I mask or paint, or even swap where possible, all blue leds those lazy designers keep sticking into gadgets and appliances.

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

#28
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…

"dark" looks nice. Thank you!

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

#29
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…

Similar to the Hacker News pallet, I like it!
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