A blog post by Dr. Aida Farshadi For millions of years, humans lived under the full spectrum of sunlight. Our physiology evolved not just with visible light, but also with near-infrared light (NIR), an invisible wavelength that makes up nearly half of the sun's energy reaching Earth. Photo by Todd Rhines  on Unsplash What is near-infrared light and why we're missing it? Near-infrared sits just beyond the red end of the visible spectrum, in the 700–1100 nm wavelength range. Un

Summary of Ulysse Dormoy’s article “What Is Light?” “It occurred to me that since I started posting articles and thoughts about light, I haven’t yet raised the question - ‘ What is Light? ’ – actually, in 30+ years in the lighting industry it's not a question I've challenged myself with.” – Ulysse Dormoy Light exists in a state of duality. It behaves both as a wave and as a particle, a phenomenon known as wave–particle duality. Like the classic “chicken or egg” question, it c

It’s Blue Monday, often described as the “most depressing day of the year”. Three weeks in the new year, mostly in cloudy, rainy of snowy weather has brought the mood down of many. Photo by Pars Sahin  on Unsplash   Here are some tips and tricks to help you get through this day. Boost your mood naturally Get a lot of daylight: We recommend spending up to two hours outside, especially in the morning. But every short walk outside does already help. Move your body: If you’re goi

A blog by Timo Partonen From November to January, if your exposure to daylight is of 1 hour or longer per day, it is likely that you will not have depressive symptoms during that period of the year. Compared to the conditions where your exposure of less than 1 hour per day, the odds of having depressive symptoms will be 0.72 on average, yielding the confidence interval from 0.60 to 0.82. If you have children younger than 12 years of age at home, it is even more likely that yo

Every living organism on earth follows internal 24-hour cycles known as circadian rhythms. From a flower opening at dawn to a surge of human alertness in the mid-morning, these rhythms are deeply embedded in our biology. They regulate countless processes, from gene expression and metabolism to behaviour and sleep. In mammals, the central pacemaker of this system is located in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) of the hypothalamus. The SCN synchronises peripheral clocks that ex