Does a spiral bulb fit a standard fixture?Yes. They last as long as 13 standard light bulbs and utilize less than 25% of the electricity. These bulbs are amazing! Thanks to its electronic ballast, the brightest spiral bulb gives 150 watts of light and takes only 30 watts of electricity. All of the bulbs work safely even in fixtures that are limited to 40 watts of electricity. And since it doesn't use much electricity, the bulb doesn't get hot. In a three-way fixture, the spiral bulbs will light up on the middle click. Can I use the spiral bulbs anywhere?Yes - almost. Please don't use them with a dimmer switch. It would burn out the ballast. Also, they can't be used outside because the ballast would get too cold to start the light. Are your products C-UL approved?Yes. They have C-UL approved parts and construction. Can I get full spectrum lights in stores?Not yet. It takes a lot of education for people to understand the importance of full spectrum light. We're working on it…. For now, please order directly from us. Chromalux bulbs say their light is full spectrum. Please explain.The Chromalux bulb has all the colours of the spectrum, but the light is rose-coloured. (Remember, there is no legal definition of "full spectrum.") Looking across the colour spectrum, the Chromalux light emission is low in the important violet and blue end, the yellow is almost non-existent, and the red end is predominant. Continuing across the spectrum, the red turns to infrared or heat. This bulb loses a lot of energy in heat, which wastes electricity.
Use it if you want to add a pink glow to an area. It's relaxing to the eyes but it doesn't activate all the cells in the eyes like a balanced full spectrum does. And it doesn't contribute to health like a balanced full spectrum light. Why do researchers talk about serotonin levels?Serotonin, a neurotransmitter or neuropeptide, is high when we feel good and are relaxed, positive, focused, and have less pain. Melatonin, which helps us sleep, is produced by the brain's pineal gland when we're in the dark. Light switches the melatonin to serotonin. Light helps us wake up and be more alert and yet calm. When people don't really wake up, they may have difficulty sleeping. We all need to Lighten UP! DefinitionsCRI - Colour Rendering Index or how the colours appear under man-made light in comparison to natural sunlight. The sun is 100 CRI. The best man-made light is in the 90s. Kelvin - Kelvin Colour Temperature Scale, refers to the quality of light emanating from an artificial light source. Lux - Lux is a measurement of light output or intensity. Lumens - Another measurement of brightness. We see yellow-green as the brightest colour. Picture the new yellow-green for school crossings and yellow school buses. Since yellow is the first colour we see as babies, the scale for brightness measures the amount of yellow light emitted. However, yellow is the narrowest part of the colour spectrum and we see better under a light that includes green, blue and violet! What are T-8, T-10 and T-12 fluorescent tubes?The numbers designate different diameters of fluorescent tubes. T-8 is 1" in diameter. Found in newer commercial fixtures. Uses electronic ballast only. Fixtures with T-8s generally have 3 tubes per fixture. T-10 is 1¼" in diameter. Uses an electronic or magnetic ballast. T-12 is 1½" in diameter. The standard-size older tube. Uses electronic or magnetic ballast. What’s a ballast?A magnetic or electronic piece of equipment designed to regulate power to fluorescent tubes. There is one inside every fluorescent fixture, light box and attached to the spiral bulbs. What's the difference between a magnetic and an electronic ballast?A magnetic ballast cycles the light off and on 60 times a second. It's like being under a strobe light. You may hear the ballast hum or see the light flicker. It's quite annoying. A magnetic ballast is one of the causes of Sick Building Syndrome. Many people dislike fluorescent lights because of magnetic ballasts. An electronic ballast turns the light off and on 20,000+ times a second. Our bodies perceive this as a steady light and can relax. Stress hormones decrease. The best electronic ballasts (like ours) emit only very, very low levels of EMFs or electromagnetic frequencies. The ballast is quiet and the light doesn't flicker. What is Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS)?Working on a computer is visually demanding because of frequent eye movements, continuous eye focusing and alignment demands. Anyone who spends 2 to 3 hours per day using the computer can suffer from symptoms such as eyestrain, headaches, dry and irritated eyes, periodic blurred near vision, double vision, tired eyes, neck ache and backache or sensitivity to light. CVS is defined as the set of eye and vision difficulties linked to work related use of the computer. By providing the proper amount of light, without glare, on the video screen and the desk area you can reduce the symptoms of CVS. (See Computer Lamps) Who is John Ott? John Nash Ott, PhD, ScD (Hon) Ott spent his younger years in the family-founded First National Bank of Chicago. Not content to follow in his grandfather's footsteps, Ott left banking after 15 years to pursue photography. To test his idea that he could record the opening of flowers by taking several pictures of the same plant a few minutes apart, Ott built a large greenhouse that contained 30-40 continuously operating cameras. His plants appeared to come to life before the viewers' eyes. John Ott had invented time-lapse photography. Walt Disney heard about Ott's invention and asked him to grow a pumpkin for his 1940's movie, Cinderella. The vine grew well but the female flowers fell off. Since his fluorescent tubes were beginning to burn out, he went to the hardware store to buy replacements. The store was out of standard cool white fluorescent tubes and sold him tubes with a different color spectrum. The following year the vine again grew, but the male flowers fell off. Ott had learned that plants required full spectrum light - with all the colors of the rainbow - for proper health. Once Ott had grown a pumpkin to take Cinderella to the ball to meet the prince and live happily ever after, Walt Disney hired him for Disney's nature films, including "The Secrets of Life" and "Nature's Half Acre." Ott caused geraniums to dance in "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever" with Barbra Streisand. He pioneered the use of rare earth phosphors in fluorescent tubes that emitted all the colors of the rainbow to create the effects of natural sunlight indoors. This is now known as full spectrum light. For 12 years Ott enchanted millions of gardeners with his NBC television program, "How Does Your Garden Grow?" Over the next 40 years Ott continued his groundbreaking research into the effects of natural light on plants, animals and people. He found that fish had exothalmus (eye-popping) and did fin-nipping under cool white lights. (In human terms, this would be called "back-biting".) Under full spectrum light, the fish became healthy and stopped back-biting. After noticing the effect of the full spectrum light on himself, Ott researched the effects of natural sunlight on children at the Gocio School in Sarasota, Florida, in 1973. He compared two windowless classrooms of second graders. One room had cool white fluorescents and the other had full spectrum lights. He reported in "The International Journal of Biosocial Research" that "several extremely hyperactive children with confirmed learning disabilities calmed down completely and rapidly overcame their learning and reading problems while in the full spectrum lighted environment. The overall average academic achievement level showed significant improvement." John Ott's research even stretched to baseball caps. During an early 1970s meeting with the Cincinnati Reds, Ott emphasized the effect that light has on human behavior. He told them that the team's batting and fielding could improve simply by changing the color of the underside of the cap's bill from green to gray. They changed the color and that year the Reds won the pennant. All baseball caps are now gray on the underside of the bill, which reflects light into the eyes. Ott, a naturalist photographer who became world-famous for his groundbreaking work on the health effects of sunlight and full spectrum light, coined the word, "mal-illumination," which he compared to "malnutrition." Ott learned that full spectrum light increased the level of Vitamin D in the skin that in turn caused better absorption of calcium in the body. He discovered that light changed melatonin to serotonin when it enters the eyes. This light deprivation syndrome is now known as Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD. Ott noticed that artificial light and cathode radiation from fluorescent tubes and television sets created plant mutations and unnatural plant development, and that radiation had potential corresponding effects in humans. John Nash Ott received an Honorary Doctorate of Science Degree from Loyola University in Chicago and a Doctor of Philosophy from the American University of Natural Therapeutics and Preventive Medicine in Mesa, Arizona, in 1975. He founded John Ott Pictures and John Ott Laboratories. A special edition of the Cancer Control Journal by the Cancer Control Society titled, "Let There Be Light," contains an extensive collection of articles on Dr. Ott's work. Do you have more references?Yes. We have a Bibliography on Light, Radiation and Health on the Studies about Health & Light page.
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