It should be noted that even if we assume that the conclusion of this study is correct, i.e. that artificial lighting should have a wide spectrum including near-infrared light, that does not mean that returning to classic incandescent lamps is the right solution for this problem.

The incandescent lamps with tungsten filaments have a much lower temperature than the Sun, thus much more energy is radiated in infrared than needed.

There was about a year or two ago a discussion about a very interesting research paper that reported results from testing an improved kind of incandescent lamp, with energy efficiency and lifetime comparable to the LED lamps.

The high energy efficiency was achieved by enclosing the lamp in a reflecting surface, which prevented energy loss by radiation, except for a window that let light out, which was frequency-selective, so only visible light got out, while infrared stayed inside. The lamp used a carbon filament in an environment that prevented the evaporation of the filament.

With such a lamp, one can make a tradeoff between energy efficiency and the content of healthy near infrared light, by a judicious choice of the frequency cutoff for the window through which light exits the lamp.

Even with enough near-infrared light, the efficiency should be a few times higher than for classic incandescent lamps, though not as good as for LED lamps. Presumably, one could reach an efficiency similar to that of the compact fluorescent lamps (which was about half of that of LED lamps), for such an incandescent lamp that also provides near-infrared light.

There is a 15-30% difference between the groups at baseline (fig 8c-9c, 8d-9d), about the same magnitude as the claimed effect of the experimental condition.

I think the result would be much stronger if these baselines were comparable, so they show they have accounted for other variables like time of day and light history. I am also skeptical of any effect in the retina lasting 6 weeks, with no fading.

Consider that people are often exposed to much more infrared light outdoors, so "worked under a relatively dim incandescent lamp" is not a particularly novel stimulus. Imagine that any of these people spent time outdoors during the six weeks - thousands of times more infrared light there.

Very interesting. I've always thought that there was something a bit "off" about LED torches and car headlamps; the brightness is there, but something about the light just doesn't seem to illuminate as well as an old dim incandescent or even fluorescent tube.

Just to point to anybody that comes here directly, the article has no relation at all with perceived illumination, color fidelity, or anything else people complain about leds.

It's an interesting niche topic that you may want your working place to notice if you work indoors.

Was just discussing last week with a colleague how for the same 'lumen' there was such a dramatic difference between led and incandescent bulbs for ease of reading paper books.

I don't think that this is the reason.

Yes, there is something obviously wrong with most LED lights, but it isn't too much of short wavelength light, but on the contrary. It's the near absence of cyan light in most LEDs. Our eyes are by far the most sensitive to it, the majority of receptors in the eye are sensitive to it, and we may focus primarily on it (focus differs for different wavelengths). This is how you get the feeling of something being wrong with your vision as you for example walk into a mall, and so on.

If anything, higher temperature lights seem to make it better, not worse, but the problem will persist as long as the cyan hole stays there.

Someone please tell the Australian government now that we've essentially banned other forms of lighting. (except fluorescent)

I've been using incandescent more often. All my vanity lights are 40w appliance bulbs now. The difference at night is remarkable. The LED is just too much even at 2700k. I still prefer LED for high power situations like br30/40 can lights.

No mention of CRI which seems kind of odd. LEDs for lighting are increasingly graded by how natural their emission spectrum is. Older lights are quite bad, newer ones sacrifice a tiny bit of performance for more uniform spectrum.

I have incandescent light bulbs at home I have to pretty much smuggle from China. It's amazing how we're replaying the asbestos playbook a century later. Only this time it's government mandated.

Why is it that right now there is still on the frontpage of an "article being found flawed after 6k citations " ( https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2026/01/22/aking/ ) but this random article coming out of nowhere makes the front page on the same day?

People really should get it and stop sharing newly published papers to the general public. The value of one single academic paper is exactly 0. Even a handful of such articles still has 0 value to the general public. This is only of interest to other academics (or labs, countries, etc.) who may have the power to reproduce it in a controlled environment.

Be very skeptical of correlations like this that have dubious or poorly understood causation. Be even more skeptical if they are about day-to-day stuff that would likely have large swaths of people able to reproduce something like it on huge scales yet they haven't. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.