I’m usually one to announce research results and not grant funding, but the funders put out a release and Tweet, so it is officially news that we are starting a new 2-year project: Coast Light: Actionable Science to Manage Coastal Nightscapes. The funding is from USC Sea Grant and includes in-kind contributions from many partners … Continue reading Two light pollution research updates
Last year, the National Park Service released our report, Artificial night lighting and protected lands: Ecological effects and management approaches (Longcore and Rich 2016), which had been in the works for quite a while. Our colleague Andrej Mohar, while enthusiastic about the report overall, pointed out that a figure that we had included of natural … Continue reading How bright the moon: correcting a propagated figure error in the literature
I had the fortune of being able to offer some examples of environmental applications in a paper by Dee Pack and Brian Hardy from Aerospace Corporation for the Small Satellite Conference this summer in Utah. We (mostly they) show the feasibility of using small satellites to measure upward radiance from Earth at night, with examples … Continue reading CubeSats to measure light pollution
Yu Chuan Shan, Ben Banet, and I have been working the past couple of years on developing a monthly database of upward radiance from within and buffers around all of the National Park units in the United States. They are presenting the research today at the USC undergraduate research symposium. The results presented only scratch … Continue reading Spatial and Temporal Analysis of Nighttime Lighting In and Around National Parks
As a result of the new atlas of of artificial night sky brightness I ended up doing a lot of interviews for national and international outlets, including Science Magazine, Takepart.com, Christian Science Monitor, Scientific American, and USA Today. Then the American Medical Association released a statement on LED lighting (for which I had provided some … Continue reading Unintentional Media Blitz
Landscape architects, mark your calendars. I’ll be part of a joint presentation on Ecologically Sensitive Lighting Design that was just accepted to the American Society of Landscape Architects annual meeting in New Orleans this fall. I teamed up with lighting designer Linnaea Tillett and lighting engineer Nancy Clanton, two of the top landscape lighting experts … Continue reading Heading to New Orleans: Ecologically Sensitive Lighting Design
The message that lights can have environmental consequences becomes more and more mainstream. Optics and Photonics News this month has an article by freelance writer Jeff Hecht, with whom I’ve spoked for other stories before. His article is a multi-page spread and emphasizes both spectrum and intensity and their potential impacts, as well as the … Continue reading Optics and Photonics News Covers Environmental Impacts of Lighting
Australian zoologist Kylie Robert and colleagues have published an exciting new paper on the disruption of breeding patterns and melatonin levels in a free-ranging native mammal. I had the chance to comment on the significance of this research for Science News and am delighted that Dr. Robert will also be presenting at the Annual General … Continue reading Expert quote on exciting new light pollution research
John P. Swaddle*, Clinton D. Francis*, Jesse R. Barber, Caren B. Cooper, Christopher C.M. Kyba, Davide M. Dominoni, Graeme Shannon, Erik Aschehoug, Sarah E. Goodwin, Akito Y. Kawahara, David Luther, Kamiel Spoelstra, Margaret Voss, Travis Longcore Highlights Anthropogenic light and sound are an important component of global change. These stimuli often co-occur and may function … Continue reading A framework to assess evolutionary responses to anthropogenic light and sound
Comic Interpretation Bill Gates Tweet Popular Science Engineering Lightbulbs to Keep Insects Away CityLAB A new direction in disease prevention: lightbulbs Voice of America Science World Interview USC News Bright idea could save lives in developing countries Continue reading Coverage of Research on Configuring LEDs to Reduce Insect Attraction
Travis Longcore 