In 2011, we found there was a revival of interest in raising chickens in as natural a way as possible. This may well be in response to media images of caged chickens kept in battery farms. So when so many people started to think about raising a couple of chickens at home, they needed information on best care conditions. Hence the two articles we wrote this year on care of chickens.
Looking back on 2011 – another topic that seemed to be dear to many hearts was sleep, or the lack of it. While creating material on the subject of full-spectrum light we wrote about this topic a number of times.
The key out-take is that we need to alternate full-spectrum and dim light at the right times (ie full-spectrum during daylight hours and dim light in the evening) in order for our circadian rhythm to allow us to sleep soundly at night. (more…)
Given that one of the most important reasons for using full-spectrum light is to get accurate colour perception and to see more clearly – it’s no surprise to us that there are a number of artists working with full-spectrum light.
Vitamin D is a vitamin that the human body is able to source from both food and sunlight.
In this recent overview of the medical research – Vitamin D: A Neglected ‘analgesic’ for chronic musculoskeletal pain – the authors made the following points:
A search on “sunlight and laundry” predominantly brings up mentions of sunlight soap or detergent which just goes to show the branding power of such a powerful word as sunlight.
Many of us have learnt at school that the visible light spectrum is made up of seven colours ranging from red to violet. The colours being the same as the rainbows – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
You may also have learnt that the visible section is only a tiny portion of the full electro-magnetic spectrum, and this spectrum includes Infra-red (next to Red) and Ultra-violet (next to Violet). (more…)
We all know that there is day and night. We all know there is summer and winter.
But sometimes seeing these concepts in a visual manner at a global level, can present them in a different light.
We found this real-time illustration of the sun rising and falling around the world. It is a perfect graphic illustration of how the days are currently longer in the Northern Hemisphere (summer) and shorter in the Southern Hemisphere (winter).
Our ability to perceive colour in the world around us is a combination of our ambient light quality and the state of the cones in our eyes.
These cones in our eyes specialise in perceiving any one of the three different colour groups – red, green or blue. If any group is damaged then we cannot properly perceive that particular colour.
Not all of us are privileged enough to have access to light whenever we want. Not everyone in the world has access to flick of the switch electricity.
But one group of people that don’t have these advantages, found their own solution – do-it-yourself full-spectrum bulbs.
1. Take an empty 1.5 litre clear plastic bottle.
2. Fill with water and a little bleach.
3. Punch a hole in the roof and make a water-tight seal for your bottle.
The sun now comes through with the light of a 55 watt lightbulb – all without electricity.
You can watch the video of this process here.
We recently found reference to an 2007 meeting report from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in the United States, where they discussed how best to conduct research on possible connections between lighting and health
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