Darkness News

St Louis’ Gateway Arch Goes Dark

May 5, 2023 - CBS12

The national park will extinguish lighting for the month of May as part their efforts to improve the rate of successful migrations this year.

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Chatham-Kent, Ontario Passes Indoor Agriculture Light Pollution By-Law

May 4, 2023 - CKXS

City council passed a by-law requiring curtains that limit light spill from commercial greenhouses at night. The law was based on similar rules from neighboring towns and enforcement will phase-in over the next 18 months.

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NASA Posts Time-Lapse Video from Space Station

May 3, 2023 - Instagram

Captured between March ‘22 and March ‘23, the Instagram post show ultra high definition video of light at night from 250 miles up.

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Charting Savings from Citizen-Managed Street Lighting Controls

May 2, 2023 - NewsNetDaily

6 months ago the city of Saint-Brieuc in northwestern France allowed locals to control street lighting on 14 streets. Lights would be off at night by default after 10pm and app users to turn on lamps while using the street. In that time 188 hours of unnecessary operation have been saved, city officials are considering expanding the range of controlled lamps and whether to extinguish lamps after 8pm.

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Insects are Distracted by Light, Not Drawn In By It

May 1, 2023 - BioRxiv

A pre-publication study from Samuel Fabian at the Imperial College of London has determined that the dorsal light response of most flying insects isn’t drawn to light, per se, but merely gets distracted and stuck by light as the insect passes by the source. Local flight path disruption in this way may be a disruption of attitude control, not navigational function.

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Dim Light at Night Harms Rural Moths

April 28, 2023 - Journal of Applied Ecology

Lepidopterists at Vrije Universiteit Brussels have found that rural moths are not going dormant over winter months due to the presence of light at night. The paper calls for greater measures to limit skyglow during the autumn.

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Outdoor Light: Uplight, Reflections, and Efficiency

April 25, 2023 - Energies

A new study from the Warsaw University of Technology has determined that key to balancing efficiency requirements against light pollution is a better-designed fixture. By reducing upward light at the luminaire as well as upward flux (the light reflected off of surfaces) balance can be achieved. Upward flux remains difficult to both estimate and calculate but lighting plans should consider the environment when planning brightness levels.

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Bee Cave, TX Recognized by the IDA as a ‘Dark Sky Community’

April 24, 2023 - NBC-KXAN

The central Texas town is the 40th such community overall, and the 7th in the state. IDA officials noted recent lighting bylaws combined with ongoing awareness campaigns from city hall as part of their reasons for granting the designation.

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Big Bend Dark Sky Reserve Celebrates

April 21, 2023

Ft Davis Texas-area park and observatory celebrated their first anniversary and International Dark Sky Week with talks, tours, and labs […]

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Light Pollution Weakens Circadian Rhythms

April 20, 2023 - International Journal of Molecular Science

Researchers at Comenius University’s Department of Animal Physiology and Ethology have found that low-levels of light at night notably weakens the circadian response in the region of the brain that regulates that response in rodents. These changes do carry through to other hormonal signals throughout the body.

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Saskatoon, SK Town Council Moves Ahead with Lighting Bylaw

April 19, 2023 - CJWW

A package of new bylaws and bylaw amendments including a requirement for night preserving lighting is set for final approval this June.

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Understanding Mankind’s Threats to the Night

April 18, 2023 - BioScience

A comprehensive study by Kevin J Gaston of the University of Exeter has catalogued the various threats; light pollution, changes to land use, climate change, resource use, spread of invasive species, and habitat destruction that come from man-made changes to the nighttime environment.

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