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Daily blue light shortens lifespan, causes brain neurodegeneration in Drosophila

nature.com

81–90 of 91 posts

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

#81
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…

Working on a compiler? Do tell!

Oh yeah I've been trying to give the world another unwanted programming language for a little while. This snapshot is from a tool I'm writing to generate C bindings--today glibc, tomorrow the world, etc.

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

#82
post #67
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…

Those who want this look (or other retro looks) in a terminal [1] [1] https://github.com/Swordfish90/cool-retro-term

Oh yeah love CRT. Actually started out trying to use that but I don't have a great graphics card so it was a little laggy. I highly recommend running a terminal in gVim though; I've found it to be the best terminal on Mac OS.

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

#83
post #9

If you are a human and not a fly here is what concerns you "... humans are exposed to more blue-enriched LED illumination for most of the day, or even at night due to shift work and light pollution in large cities.6 However, long-term consequences of increased daily blue-light exposure across the human lifespan are not known." saved you a clickbait.

There is a long running show called the nature of things in Canada that had an ep called 'lights out' discussing this subject in detail. Really interesting if one can see it.

Excessive blue light exposure mucks with our natural sleep cycle which leads to various health issues.

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

#84
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought that myopia was more of a genetic inherited trait than related to time spent indoors.

> Multiple factors are involved in the development of myopia [18]. Both genetics and the environment play a role in the development and progression of myopia. Many epidemiological surveys have shown that excessive close-up work, a high level of education, and participation in fewer outdoor activities were important environmental risk factors for myopia [9,19–24]. Genetic factors have been proven to play a significant…

Thanks! I'm myopic, have higher ed degrees, and work as a luthier specializing in restoration work (excessive close up work for long hours). I knew it was partly genetic looking at family history but had no idea that my everyday work was compounding the problem.

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

#85
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working on a compiler? Do tell!

Oh yeah I've been trying to give the world another unwanted programming language for a little while. This snapshot is from a tool I'm writing to generate C bindings--today glibc, tomorrow the world, etc.

Nice! Working on a transpiler myself :). https://gist.github.com/cellularmitosis/e1bdadab4f9691c8564b...

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

#86
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 tempe…

What’s your setup?

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

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tempe…

What’s your setup?

http://termux.com, tmux, vim, git, ecj, dx

aapt, apkbuilder, signer (for android apps)

bluetooth keyboard + ARM quad cortex-A53 1.3 GHz, 20 GFLOPS GPU, 1 GB RAM - for 70's era unix tools, it is unbelievably powerful. Specs in the billions.

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

#88
post #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.

Blue light is not ionizing radiation. In fact, not even UV-C is ionizing. You have to get shorter-wavelength than UV to ionize. UV is harmful because it has enough energy to at least excite electrons to higher energy levels which can lead to, I think, changes in bond rotations, but not outright ionization. UV is clearly dangerous, but not because it ionizes. I'm not sure how the transparency argument is relative. You…

I'm not confusing energy with intensity, but in a silly moment I got the word "photoionization" with photodissociation/photolysis. Yes, you need hard UV to actually eject an electron from its atom, but you need far far less energy to break bonds and damage DNA. Photosynthesis is all about redox driven by blue and red photons.

These are more than just bond rotations (with only slim exceptions, bond rotations have the same energy state) from photostimulation. You can flip cis/trans bonds (main mechanism of retinal), ring closing in vit D, and cause all kinds of increased free radical activity [1]. In particular, blue light interacting with certain chemophores, such as catechins, are relatively prone to photoactivation [2].

Ever seen polycarbonate that's been around blue LED light sources (not sunlight) for a very long time? It yellows. That's not "just adding heat", that's chemical bonds breaking.

Transparent just means the entirety of the body can be bathed in light.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15797866

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29973539

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

#89
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blue light is not ionizing radiation. In fact, not even UV-C is ionizing. You have to get shorter-wavelength than UV to ionize. UV is harmful because it has enough energy to at least excite electrons to higher energy levels which can lead to, I think, changes in bond rotations, but not outright ionization. UV is clearly dangerous, but not because it ionizes. I'm not sure how the transparency argument is relative. You…

I'm not confusing energy with intensity, but in a silly moment I got the word "photoionization" with photodissociation/photolysis. Yes, you need hard UV to actually eject an electron from its atom, but you need far far less energy to break bonds and damage DNA. Photosynthesis is all about redox driven by blue and red photons. These are more than just bond rotations (with only slim exceptions, bond rotations have the…

Thanks for the info! Apologies if I came across as patronizing.

EDIT> cis/trans retinal -- should have remembered that

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

#90
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not confusing energy with intensity, but in a silly moment I got the word "photoionization" with photodissociation/photolysis. Yes, you need hard UV to actually eject an electron from its atom, but you need far far less energy to break bonds and damage DNA. Photosynthesis is all about redox driven by blue and red photons. These are more than just bond rotations (with only slim exceptions, bond rotations have the…

Thanks for the info! Apologies if I came across as patronizing. EDIT> cis/trans retinal -- should have remembered that

No problem. At the time I was particularly sloppy with my terminology and that didn't help discourse much.
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