The Darkness News Update for November 13, 2025

NAILD

Highlights from this episode:  - Cancer  - Amber LEDs  - Burnout  - Moths  Intro and outro music by Doctor Turtle  Sponsored by The National Association of Innovative Lighting Distributors visit https://naild.org/  Headlines and Sources can be found at https://restoringdarkness.com/  Find the Darkness News Update on BluSky https://bsky.app/profile/darknessnewsupdate.bsky.social

Transcript

00:00hi there i'm recording this on november 11th 2025 and that means two things um a lot has happened

00:12in two weeks and it's also time for the darkness news update brought to you by the national

00:18association of innovative lighting distributors the news starts with the final version of the

00:26design lights consortium's luna 2 rules being released to the general public and then lighting

00:33manufacturers opting into those lighting rules and uh the real question remains is whether or not

00:41the luna 2 actually changes it the real question is that it if it is this going to move the needle

00:50is luna 2 going to move the needle on on on regular uh lighting ordinances because it's unclear if that

01:02will actually happen we have not an especially robust piece or particularly well executed bit of social

01:12science but uh a survey group called talker research surveyed 2000 adults in the united states

01:20and found that 33 percent of adult men are still afraid of the dark

01:27i'm never gonna let this go this is one of my like three things i'm never gonna let go

01:36like like like if if there is a third of surveyed adult men who are afraid of the dark i'm gonna use

01:43that to make fun of anyone that insists on brightness at night forever the university of exeter has said

01:52that pc amber or even direct amber really won't save us uh none there are no amber leds that are close

02:03enough to gas discharge lamps that they'll ever be fully equivalent to to the originals and that

02:12even though we emphasize color in our work in terms of light pollution mitigation and human health at

02:21light with light at night that actually we still need to consider design elements we still need to

02:27decide if this area needs to be lit and even if it's lit with amber lights um it might not be great for

02:35us uh we have a study from rock out feller neuroscience that shows that alan and light at night and air

02:44pollution are linked with brain and behavioral function and we need new health care strategies for these

02:51interactions we have a new uh chinese study that links alan with hypertension dyslipidia and liver diseases

03:03along with air pollution they are studying urbanized populations and multi-morbidities and show that

03:10these two air pollution and light pollution go together with these health issues and maybe we can fix that

03:16uh study from fujian a little a little further north that shows that again air pollution and light pollution

03:24are linked with thyroid cancer this study is based on per capita weightings so urban areas of fujian province

03:32are dealing with more thyroid cancer than rural areas and that has to be related to the light and air

03:39and eventually they're going to have to fix that we have a new study that shows that long-term melatonin

03:46use might be bad for your health uh there are some areas where in order to get melatonin you need a

03:54prescription which means you need to prove that you have long-term insomnia and in those areas they've

04:02been able to weight that they've been able to measure like ab's and say like okay the guys who are

04:07getting prescriptions for melatonin are not doing so great there is a four percent four percent

04:16spike in heart issues associated with this drug does that actually mean that melatonin use is bad for

04:26everyone not totally clear actually uh what actually matters is that if you're not sleeping well it's bad

04:35for you and if you need melatonin for a long time well you're not sleeping well and that's bad for you

04:41uh we have a yet another study that shows that daylight saving time is making evening commutes

04:50more fatal this is a thing that happens every year and it keeps happening

04:58i don't know what else to say daylight saving time is bad for everyone it's especially in areas where you're

05:04driving a lot or need to cross the street a lot we have a study from la rochelle university that shows that

05:12bright light in the morning makes you feel colder they were able to measure skin temperatures at

05:20certain times of day and found that the circadian component component of that means that if you can

05:27mess with the lighting you can mess with how you feel this might save us some money on hvac or something

05:35else unclear the biological clock has been linked with hormones circadian alignment and burnout uh this

05:44is a study of romanian doctors who work shifts and found that extended periods working in the night

05:52does compound operational stress we have a study that shows that circadian terminology was translated

05:59into arabic in a useful way and that all the participants understood that

06:05but uh this study in shift workers in borain didn't produce anything else of interest or worthwhile

06:14uh weird publication but i'm gonna highlight it for now

06:18now the korea brain research institute has figured out why finches sing at dawn they have tracked the

06:27light uh in their life their day night cycle and when they sing and why and also they have determined

06:34that they don't sing so loudly when artificial lighting is available to them so the longer artificial lights are

06:43on in the early morning then they don't sing so loudly that's very interesting in the uk we have a

06:51new diagnostic a new set of data that shows that um between 2014 and 2021 that nocturnal insect activity

07:02is less visible on weather radar you can actually track insects and a lot of things on radar it's really

07:09about dialing your sensitivity but what happens is is that um over the past few years uh nighttime insects

07:18are just not as active anymore especially uh in regions of the uk that already have a lot of lighting

07:27light is part of that problem but we just have more data to prove that exists we have a new set data set

07:36from lepidoporos that both populations are continuing to drop in urban areas we also have a new call for moth

07:44state safety related to that this is a position paper from robin grub and the norwegian university of

07:52science and technology that insists that we need to take more care of our moths we also have a study

08:00that shows that light at night spikes activity in parasitic flatworms specifically the type that feeds on

08:09water fleas uh this will carry up the food chain but it's just gonna point out that like literally

08:15we've just got this one kind of worm and this one kind of flea and those those go together speaking of

08:21water fleas light at night alters the migration of water fleas which means that urban adjacent

08:28populations don't really move and that again has further ecosystem implications

08:34uh light at night also alters the behavior of salt marsh crabs crabs tend to use lunar cycles to deal

08:43with nest building and the brighter the light at night especially from the coast that messes with

08:50that behavior and they don't necessarily do as well going up the food chain uh the u.s department of

08:56energy has cut research funds for research on the impacts of wind farms on bats so uh the doe had

09:05planned on spending 1.6 million dollars to figure out what wind farms offshore of the california course

09:13coast would would or would not harm populations or alter bat behavior that's fine though because uh

09:21there's never been any major um major diseases that are related to bats changing their behavior all of a

09:29sudden no sirree bob the purdue university astronomy club is calling for changes to campus lighting

09:39they are joined by one of their percent professors from the forestry and natural resources department

09:45in hoping to change how uh the campus is lit going forward the university of cincinnati is calling for bird

09:54safety um the ornithology department found 50 birds dead in a single day uh they're on the case and

10:02hoping to change how uh not just lighting but also uh the windows and on campus are contributing to that

10:10that in markham ontario ibm's campus uh just keeps killing birds about 113 per year uh the fatal light

10:21at night uh awareness program uh in canada is working with employees to improve not just the windows but

10:30also the lighting to reduce bird fatalities in the area the charlotte county national resources program

10:39announces the winners of their first sea turtle lighting recognition program with the condominiums at

10:45pelican pelican landing uh receiving that first award that they partnered with the sea turtle conservancy

10:54to install wildlife friendly lighting and that's how they got it in bakersfield california they are

11:01pushing back on a proposed lds temple as as they want to put up a 120 foot a 124 foot tall tower

11:15and the adjoining up lighting to make that all happen which again isn't great we're not anti-morning mormon

11:26at this organization we're just anti-uplight in related news we're not anti-bucky's either we're not anti-gas

11:36station either we're not anti-gas station that has really good barbecue but in born texas a bucky's

11:44will go ahead they had to compromise with the locals to assure that assure them that their 60 foot tall sign

11:54would be under very strict scrutiny for lighting code violations they're going to limit the uplight

12:01they're going to limit the glare and uh yeah no it'll it'll still be there in san mateo county

12:09california they are using new dark sky lighting principles to light uh not a whole elementary school

12:16just just just the parking lot for staff uh there's a few poles going up there and they'll they'll be

12:23balancing you know the needs of everyone in terms of the staff and everyone else in cannon falls minnesota

12:33there are a new set of rules for for data centers specifically uh brightness sound and lighting

12:42in bluff county utah they are going to be holding a dark sky festival that's this weekend in missoula

12:49montana they are adding three miles of active transit lighting to their trail system and uh all those

12:57conform to existing dark sky bylaws in marion massachusetts they have cut brightness uh from their

13:05their maritime center their maritime center their maritime center just by dimming

13:13uh the department of homeland security is going to install 346 miles of stadium lighting in big

13:22ben national park uh that is to say that big ben national park is the second biggest dark sky reserve

13:31and they will have unspecified detection tech unspecified cameras and specified big old bright lights

13:41uh specifically these will be pointed from texas into mexico this is the second biggest dark sky

13:49reserve again and i call on dark sky international to uh condemn the actions of dark of the department of

13:56homeland security in this case in the uk they have published a new set of reminders of uh highway code

14:06related to led headlights this is an entirely non-binding set of reminders related to existing rules

14:14specifically related to whether or not how how you should be using not whether or not but

14:22how you should be using the brightest parts of your headlights uh dark matter glows maybe mostly in

14:31the gamma ray spectra but that does mean that at the center of the universe the dark matter that makes

14:37everything happen or could be making everything happen is is is rattling out radiation and it's unclear what

14:46that means or how that could mean anything but it does mean that radial interference is getting in the

14:53way of our understanding of that which is to say that objects in low orbit that emit radial interference

14:59are getting in the way of what doc what our understanding of dark matter and how uh it how how everything

15:07else works in the universe speaking of low orbit objects uh low orbit objects are also threatened by solar rays

15:17solar storms the kind that generates the aurora borealis and the aurora australis do also knock objects in low

15:28orbit out of position which means they often have to push push uh you use thrusters to push their way back

15:37into position but it also means that uh they they can just be that that solar radiation can be a hazard to

15:45every object in orbit speaking of objects in orbit um more objects in orbit are entering there nvidia is

15:54going to be launching ai denders ai data centers into low orbit which is to say that they will be

16:03putting objects high up where they don't necessarily have to be subject to lighting or ventilation or noise

16:11rules and they will just beam down your llm results

16:19additionally google gemini might be moving some of their data centers into orbit this is a possibility

16:26uh again they'll be putting putting their their processors onto cubesats that are that will be solar powered

16:37and that will again allow them to power generative models and generative data centers places that they don't have

16:48to deal with the local uh the local utility uh charging them for data they don't or for power they don't have to deal

17:00with locals complaining about noise or brightness but i just want to point out that in space

17:11it's really hard to dissipate heat it's almost impossible to dissipate heat

17:15heat one of the issues with data centers right now is they consume a lot of water

17:20because that's an easy way to cool down processors and water is great for that because it's um it allows

17:27you to put a bunch of molecules close together and then move them away from the source of heat and then

17:33dissipate it in space there aren't a lot of molecules almost no molecules in fact that that's a

17:41that's a real issue that's why we wear spacesuits there aren't any molecules up there so if you put a

17:50very hot data processor into orbit well there's there's nowhere for that heat to go actually because

17:57there's no molecules in space for that dissipate to i don't know why we have two companies insisting they

18:05can put ai data centers into orbit this might be a scam

18:13in something that is not sponsored sponsored lsi has secured recognition from dark sky international

18:20for six products these are all area lights and they look pretty cool and in the uk the south downs

18:28national park is opening submissions for astrophotography for their annual astrophotography

18:35competition the deadline is january 18th if you're in the area already or are planning to go take a few

18:43pictures you can submit there are cash prizes available

18:49otherwise i have been scott walker i want to thank you for your time your attention i want to thank

18:57nailed i want to thank the soft lights foundation i will see you until in two weeks take care of yourselves

19:13so

19:23you

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