Lights Out! The Nature of Things

When Edison invented the light bulb, he did not have the slightest idea that it would change society and reset the biological clock of the human body. That technological development has a constant impact on our lives. For instance, the birth of artifi cial light turned our natural day and night cycles upside down. The lives of our ancestors were subjected to sunrise and sunset, but there is nothing to hold us back, except for unpaid bills. Many of us are woken by a cell phone in the morning and in the evening we fall asleep watching TV. Some of us work shifts and others only work at night. After watching the Lights Out! episode from the documentary series The Nature of Things, the audience will surely give up watching late night repeats of the evening news. American scientists discovered that the abundance of light not only robs our body of an undisturbed sleep, but it also causes depression and the addition of a few extra kilos. The scientists identifi ed the function of a crucial hormone, the production of which is based on a regular routine of light and dark. Melatonin prevents our carcinogenic cells from becoming cancerous, but it is only activated in the presence of the darker colours of the light spectrum. The morning’s pale blue colours mute its function. (Academia Film Olomouc)