New research shows that the insects flying around the streetlights are in fact in a living hell that we made for bugs.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-44785-3
Essentially, their tiny bug brains think the light is the sunset, so they keep turning to keep the “sun” at the same angle so they can go “straight.” No matter how far they fly, they don’t make any progress. They are trapped in this little hell we made just for them, not understanding why they can’t get to where they are going.
I learned this back in the 90s, I’m surprised new research is needed.
The solution seems to be LED lighting. The right LED bulbs don’t trigger the bug brains.
Edit to add source (below) and I forget the detail: it’s about using LEDs with less blue light, since blue light affects the bugs.
https://phys.org/news/2022-10-impact-energy-efficient-streetlights-insects.html
According to this study LED lights made no difference.
@alvvayson Existing research was about “how do we stop the bugs from circling our lights?”. This is about *why* the bugs circle the lights. It artificially triggers the dorsal reflex, which disorients the bugs.
Which LEDs? LEDs are pretty much all giving off the same two colors to make white: blue and yellow (in a single chip made of a blue LED and yellow uv-reactive phosphor). Warm white, cool white, same thing just varying intensities of each color. Only cheap color-changing LEDs (now) will use R/G/B chips lit together without dedicated white chips. What wavelengths are they tracking?
Shout out Shuji Nakamura, inventor of the blue LED. Kinda broke the whole thing wide open.
I also watched that last week.
Watched that video last night. That was more fascinating than it had any right to be.
I’ve been an electronics nerd since the 70s, and somehow never noticed blue LEDs becoming a thing.
why would they break their own invention?