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Internal Clock, External Light Regulate Plant Growth
Most plants and animals show changes in activity over a 24-hour cycle. Now, for the first time, researchers have shown how a plant combines signals from its internal clock with those from the environment to show a daily rhythm of growth.   view more (2007-07-10)

Light-activated compound silences nerves, may one day help epileptics
Brain activity has been compared to a light bulb turning on in the head. Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have reversed this notion, creating a drug that stops brain activity when a light shines on it.   view more (2007-03-07)

Constant sunlight linked to summer suicide spike
Suicide rates in Greenland increase during the summer, peaking in June. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Psychiatry speculate that insomnia caused by incessant daylight may be to blame.   view more (2009-05-08)

Hard shell, glowing core
Tiny semiconductor crystals can be prompted to give off light - brighter than conventional dyes and in wavelength ranges that these only produce under certain conditions. Israeli chemist Uri Banin and his coworker Yun-Wie Cao demonstrated this with several core/shell nanocrystals made of the semiconductor indium arsenide. It has been known for... view more... (1999-12-09)

Laser experiments reveal strange properties of superfluids
Princeton University electrical engineers are using lasers to shed light on the behavior of superfluids - strange, frictionless liquids that are difficult to create and study.   view more (2006-12-26)

Owls' dawn and dusk concerts promote visual communication
Reporting in the online, open-access journal PLoS ONE April 8, Vincenzo Penteriani and Maria Delgado of the Estacion Biologica de Doñana, Spain, describe the evolution of white throat badges in association with dawn and dusk vocal signals in certain species of nocturnal bird, which maximise the potential for these species to communicate... view more... (2009-04-08)

Advance by chemists may lead to better displays on laptop computers, cell phones
UCLA chemists working at the nanoscale have developed a new, inexpensive means of forcing luminescent polymers to give off polarized light and of confining that light to produce polymer-based lasers.   view more (2007-09-18)

New Research could benefit drivers who are sensitive to night-time glare conditions
A new technique to measure the effect of bright light on the human eye could result in safer and more user-friendly lighting conditions. The technique, which records the electrical activity of a major muscle surrounding the eye, opens the way to measuring the discomfort of the eye in conditions of changing light. This could have important... view more... (2001-09-26)

New study: Why solar cells lose potency
Commercial products such as laptop computer monitors and solar-powered calculators are constructed from a light-sensitive material with a peculiar problem: When exposed to intense light, it forms defects, reducing the efficiency of the solar cells by 10 to 15 percent.   view more (2005-06-20)

Structuring polymers by laser
Microstructured polymer components are often used to direct light in optical devices. As an alternative to mechanical processes, laser light can also be used to produce the microscopic relief structures, and even to remove them without contact. With a flash of blue-green light, the show begins. Like a line of silent ballet dancers, long-chain... view more... (2004-05-14)

Regular Light Bulbs Made Super-Efficient with Ultra-Fast Laser
An ultra-powerful laser can turn regular incandescent light bulbs into power-sippers, say optics researchers at the University of Rochester.   view more (2009-06-01)

Scientists break light modulation speed record -- twice
Researchers have constructed a light-emitting transistor that has set a new record with a signal-processing modulation speed of 4.3 gigahertz, breaking the previous record of 1.7 gigahertz held by a light-emitting diode.   view more (2009-06-16)

Small optical force can budge nanoscale objects
With a bit of leverage, Cornell researchers have used a very tiny beam of light with as little as 1 milliwatt of power to move a silicon structure up to 12 nanometers. That's enough to completely switch the optical properties of the structure from opaque to transparent, they reported.   view more (2009-11-18)

U of MN study finds health education helps African American light smokers kick the habit
The first clinical trial to focus on light smokers shows that African Americans are motivated to quit more by completing health education than by using nicotine gum.   view more (2006-05-31)

Viagra®, unlikely tool for vision research, slows the visual response to flickering light
Therapeutic doses of Viagra¬Æ have been shown to influence the rate at which visual signals are integrated by the brain, affecting the way quick, repeated events, such as flickering light, are perceived.   view more (2006-01-24)

Making monster waves
Rogue waves-giant waves that spring up suddenly and tower over the seas around them-have inspired physicists to look for an analogue in light.   view more (2009-10-20)

Up-scale: Frequency converter enables ultra-high sensitivity infrared spectrometry
In what may prove to be a major development for scientists in fields ranging from forensics to quantum communications, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a new, highly sensitive, low-cost technique for measuring light in the near-infrared range.   view more (2009-08-27)

Experimental atomic clock uses ytterbium 'pancakes'
Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) working with Russian colleagues have significantly improved the design of optical atomic clocks that hold thousands of atoms in a lattice made of intersecting laser beams.   view more (2006-03-07)

Spookfish uses mirrors for eyes
A remarkable new discovery shows the four-eyed spookfish to be the first vertebrate ever found to use mirrors, rather than lenses, to focus light in its eyes.    view more (2009-01-08)

Revamped experiment could detect elusive particle, physicists say
An experiment called "shining light through walls" would seem hard to improve upon. But University of Florida physicists have proposed a way to do just that, a step they say considerably improves the chance of detecting one of the universe's most elusive particles, a candidate for the common but mysterious dark matter.   view more (2007-04-26)
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