Author: e0322957

Solutions

Part I: Letting Golf, Course the Way

With growing awareness of the implications of artificial light exposure at night, various responses are starting to take off in different parts of the world. An innovative example to combat light pollution is the creation of dark spaces in golf-courses. This trend is particularly in North America in places like California, San Diego, Texas and Colorado, which is unsurprising considering that the International Dark-Sky Association was founded in nearby Arizona…

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Humans

Shedding Light on Cancer Risk

Looking at the global distributions of breast and prostate cancer points us to consider its possible association with artificial light exposure at night (Figure 1&2).  Figure 1. Breast cancer rates (per 100,000). Source: (Haim & Portnov, 2013)Figure 2. Prostate cancer rates (per 100,000). Source: (Haim & Portnov, 2013) Not only do we detect an oddly similar global distribution of breast and prostate cancer, we also see that cancer incidence rates…

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Humans

Light Modes and Human Moods

Artificial light pollution at night (ALAN) has yet again been associated with another aspect of our health — mental illness. Studies such as this have investigated the impact of outdoor light at night and its association with the emergence of depressive symptoms in the Netherlands. Analysed data revealed a positive association between the exposure to outdoor ALAN within the immediate residential environment and depressive symptoms. Other studies conducted on Japanese…

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Humans

Does Light Exposure Cause Parkinson’s Disease?

Did you know that travelling light can reach our brains? This reality alongside the increasing severity of global light pollution has led to a growing interest amongst researchers to investigate the impact of artificial light on the brain in recent years. In this post, we will be looking at a newly released study by Fasciani et al. (2020), on the effect of artificial light on dopamine neurons and possibly as…

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Humans

Eye Did Not See This Coming

Let’s have a quick check on your eyes right now. Are they irritated? Are you blinking excessively? Are the words glaring right off your screen? Perhaps, it’s time to give your eyes a little break… right after you finish reading this post! In this post, we will follow this study on the possible consequences of light pollution on [our] retina[s] to find out more about how light damages our eyes…

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Animals

It’s Not Time to Go Into the Light

Six months following the attack on the World Trade Center, the first Tribute in Light twin beams shot into the sky in commemoration of the lives lost on September 11th, 2001. However, it was only after a few years that the impact of these strong beams was brought into light. Apparently, the concentration of artificial lights induced a mass of birds to gather and circle within the beams, extending up…

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Marine

No Nights Left for Night Swimming  

Besides negatively impacting the reproduction process, circadian rhythms and consumption patterns of aquatic creatures, light pollution can also severely impact the predator-prey relationship in aquatic organisms like aquatic insects. While not all of them might live underwater, most aquatic insects spend a larger part of their lives in water bodies, with only several days or weeks spent airborne after fully maturing. How then might these winged-creatures move if they can’t…

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Marine

Tiny Sandy Beach Invertebrates but Tinier

Furthering a former post of the impacts of artificial light on intertidal organisms, today’s featured study centres its discussion on the impact of Ecological Light Pollution (ELP) on the strictly nocturnal adult O. tuberculata, a talitrid amphipod which is dominant specie in the upper intertidal zone of exposed sandy beaches of central and southern Chile.  Figure 1.  Orchestoidae tuberculata ELP, similar to ALAN (mentioned in earlier posts) refers to artificial…

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Marine

Fishy business

With the rising awareness of light pollution, fish-y business has entered the debate. In particular, the business of intertidal fishes.   Image 1. Intertidal Zone (Rocky Shoreline) This study shows that intertidal fish (G. laevifrons) exposed to Artificial Light Pollution at Night (ALAN) experience two main changes — 1. interruption of circadian cycles and circatidal rhythms, and 2. increase in oxygen consumption. But first, let’s talk about what ALAN is. ALAN…

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Uncategorized

What is Light Pollution?

Welcome to toobrightinhere where Jean and I (Trudie) will be exploring the topic of light pollution and its impacts on our planet Earth. Now, light pollution to me sounds pretty harmless. How bad can a little excess light be? Well, to my horror, research reveals that light is BAD — it impacts humans, animals and the environment and sometimes is even fatal. Furthermore, National Geographic declared Singapore, our dear home…

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