Exploring the Spectrum - Light and Living Organisms (1975)

Exploring the Spectrum - Light and Living Organisms (1975)

Exploring the Spectrum: The Effects of Natural and Artificial Light on Living Organisms

by John Nash Ott

An exciting video journey through the world of time-lapse photography by one of the founders of the science of photobiology. Do fluorescent lights cause cancer and childhood learning and behavior disorders? Can long-term exposure to low-level radiation as from TV sets, computers, fluorescent lights, and similar devices harm your health? Does living behind window glass and with glasses covering our eyes over years affect our health? Is natural sunlight and trace ultra-violet radiation really harmful to our health? Or is it necessary and beneficial? How do cells, plants and animals respond to constant exposure to different light color frequencies? Does mal-illumination and electrosmog create nervous agitation and a weakened immune system? These and similar questions were the subject of Dr. John Nash Ott's pioneering investigations in the field of photobiology, using the methods of time-lapse photography. In an era of increasing low-level electromagnetic pollution, where everyone is "wired up" to the internet 24/7, and even children have the latest cell phones, iPods, blueberries and other Wi-Fi gizmos, sitting under fluorescent lights with eyeballs glued to display screens, Dr. Ott shows we are paying the price with our health and biology. Our indoor lifestyles and chronic wearing of UV-blocking eye-glasses and contact lenses additionally has deprived us of biologically necessary natural trace-ultraviolet and bluer frequencies of light, with an irrational and nearly superstitious fear of natural sunlight. Dr. Ott's time-lapse movies, reproduced here, show how plants and animals are deeply affected in movement, growth, form and sexual behavior, by these significant bioenergetic changes in our natural living conditions. This is a wonderful video showing Dr. Ott's original film sequences from 30 years ago, including entire plants growing from a seed to fruit in less than a minute. A fascinating nature study for both adults and children! Digitally remastered from Dr. Ott's original 35 mm films, and much better quality than the older VHS version, this is a collector's item and scientific masterpiece guaranteed to transfix both the amateur and professional, and a definite must for every parent and schoolteacher.

Dr. Ott founded Ott Pictures, and the Environmental Health and Light Research Institute in Sarasota, Florida. Many of the time-lapse sequences in several of the late Walt Disney's films, such as Secrets of Life and Nature's Half Acre are the work of John Ott, as well as the time-lapse sequences in Paramount's production On a Clear Day You Can See Forever.

Review: Dr. John Ott was upsetting a lot of establishment-type dogmatic teachers and professors in the 1970s and 80s, because his work showed we all need the trace UV radiation which comes from the sun, and that it is not a danger. He showed how "mal-illumination" created illness in plants and laboratory mice, and his work suggested schoolchildren were reacting badly -- with outbreaks of leukemia and hyperactive behavior -- when confined like lab rats in those window-less fluorescent-lit cages called "schools". He stumbled upon these problems while making time-lapse films for Disney, observing that basic physiology and even sexual behavior was affected by loss of trace UV, and that life required full-spectrum light and the normal dark period of rest. The implications of this is, fluorescent lights (even the cute little "compact fluorescents," which are little toxic bombs) cause cancers and childhood learning and behavior disorders. And long term exposure to non-visible radiations from fluorescent lights, computers, microwave ovens, cell phones and such, can also harm your health. This film not only details an important scientific discovery, but it is entertaining, as you get to see all kinds of plants moving and growing in speeded-up time-lapse photography. Not just the opening of flowers, but the growth and ripening of apples and bananas, the growth of a full-size pumpkin from a tiny seed shoot, and the crazy behavior of lab rats and children when exposed to low-level electromagnetic frequencies, as compared to when those frequencies are blocked. He also shows how greenhouses using uv-transmitting plastic windows have better and healthier growth than the normal ones using uv-blocking window-glass. Same with animal breeders, where the lack of UV in indoor pens led to sickness. Really quite amazing. Dr. Ott was ignored, mostly, which is unfortunate, as we continue to live away from nature, behind all sorts of sunlight and UV-blocking architecture, from windows where manufacturers boast "UV-blocking," to sunglasses which boast this, to people at risk slathering heavy-metal creams onto their skin which itself is cancer-causing, not the UV. At some point in the future, people will marvel at our superstitions about the "toxic sun".

tags: spectrum, light, sun, health, healing, biology, humans, plants, ecology