NATURE: Lighting design for better health and well being

Description

Artificial lighting has extended the length of time for which people are exposed to light each day, for better or for worse. LED-based dynamic lighting systems that are capable of adjusting the colour and intensity of the light that they deliver should make it possible to design lit environments that are less detrimental to health. “There’s no limit to the technology in terms of what can be done with LED lights,” says Robert Lucas, a neuroscientist at the University of Manchester, UK, who studies the visual system’s response to light. “That puts the onus on us, as biologists, to tell the lighting engineers exactly what they should be doing.”