All the cool kids know that CFLs are merely a bridge technology — and now students at Drexel University have a grant to enhance their successor, which are household lights comprised of light emitting diodes.
LEDs aren’t new tech — they’re already used in your monitor, television, Christmas tree, throwies, etc. They're super efficient, plus they come in fun colors, so they’re all set to inherit the household-lighting throne.
More importantly, the ability to both dim LEDs and combine different colored bulbs to produce any color in the visible spectrum should allow the Drexel researchers to create indoor lights that will automatically match both the day length and seasonal characteristics of real sunlight.
They'll be testing this setup in a clinical setting to see whether it has any salutary effects on Alzheimer's patients. Previous research has shown that daylight helps symptoms of dementia, so this work should resolve once and for all whether or not you ever have to let your loved ones outside again, or if you can just keep them indoors under the people equivalent of grow lights.
