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Can overly luminated cities be more prone to dieses?

startailPosted for Everyone to comment on, 6 years ago3 min read

We live in a world with constant light

And in resent years the light has gone to even more daylight like. Many scientists and people wonder if this may cause some issues...

Scientist says yes

The American scientist Meredith Kernbach now claims that this is highly possible. With a team of scientists they now publish findings that birds can have issues healing when exposed to increased light.

Birds with infections of West Nile Fever will have a harder time fighting the virus if they live in a to bright environment the team claims. This is very translatable to humans since we can get the same infection from mosquitoes, where birds act as carriers.

If the birds that carry the infection have good immune system it will have less viral count, meaning mosquitos have less risk of transmitting te disease to humans.

Increased transmitting period

Comparing birds in environments with natural dark nights with those living in bright cities the late ones have an increased period they transmit the virus. The time increased a whole double, from 2 days to 4 days.

The increased period of twice could also mean the amount of mosquitoes to be twice as many, she sais.

What about other disease?

Another scientist that also started looking at the impact of lights on viral diseases is Jenny Ouyang from the Nevada university.

Ouyang is looking on the spreading of malaria. It's been previously discussed that malaria mosquitos is drawn to light, which would make heavier populated cities at risk for larger spreading.

Light pollution causing deaths?

The big question is, could human life have been spared if we had less light pollution in larger cities?

Since the first outbreak of West Nile fever in the USA 1999, almost 2000 people have died in the disease.

Even if the illness is usually not lethal, and symptoms light, there have been a few larger outbreaks with a lethal rate of about 5-10%. The latest one in Greece, 2010. Older people and those with weaker immune systems taking the hardest blow of the outbreak.


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