Blue LEDs Light Up Your Brain

About a decade ago Los Angeles–based software developer Lorna Herf decided to try her hand at oil painting. She and her husband, Michael, also a computer programmer, eventually installed bright fluorescent lights in their apartment's loft so that Lorna could paint at night and still have an accurate sense of what colors on the canvas would look like during the day. Late one evening Lorna descended to the living room, where computer screens were aglow. Now that she had become more attuned to differences in lighting, she noticed just how much the bright light from the computer screens clashed with the soft warmth of the incandescent bulbs that surrounded them. She remembers thinking the electronic screens were “like little windows of artificial daylight,” spoiling the otherwise gentle ambience of the room.