"In Artificial Light: A Narrative Inquiry into the Nature of Abstraction, Immediacy, and other Architectural Fictions, Keith Mitnick - himself an architect and teacher - presents a startlingly vivid personal memoir. Inexorably linked to his highly developed awareness of his surroundings - be they the family living room, the amusement park, a porno set, or the site of a prison execution - Mitnick's observations reveal his past in engrossing detail. By exploiting the literary conventions of the genre, he crafts an intimate narrative of repressed childhood anger, adolescent rebellion, and thoughtful reflection."--BOOK JACKET.

While certain ecological problems associated with artificial night lighting are widely known-for instance, the disorientation of sea turtle hatchlings by beachfront lighting-the vast range of influences on all types of animals and plants is only beginning to be recognized. From nest choice and breeding success of birds to behavioral and physiological changes in salamanders, many organisms are seriously affected by human alterations in natural patterns of light and dark. Ecological Consequences of Artificial Night Lighting is the first book to consider the environmental effects of the intentional illumination of the night. It brings together leading scientists from around the world to review the state of knowledge on the subject and to describe specific effects that have been observed across a full range of taxonomic groups, including mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians, fishes, invertebrates, and plants. Ecological Consequences of Artificial Night Lighting provides a scientific basis to begin addressing the challenge of conserving the nighttime environment. It cogently demonstrates the vital importance of this until-now neglected topic and is an essential new work for conservation planners, researchers, and anyone concerned with human impacts on the natural world.

Plant Factory Using Artificial Light: Adapting to Environmental Disruption and Clues to Agricultural Innovation features interdisciplinary scientific advances as well as cutting-edge technologies applicable to plant growth in plant factories using artificial light. The book details the implementation of photocatalytic methods that ensure the safe and sustainable production of vegetables at low cost and on a commercial scale, regardless of adverse natural or manmade influences such as global warming, climate change, pollution, or other potentially damaging circumstances. Plant Factory Using Artificial Light is an essential resource for academic and industry researchers in chemistry, chemical/mechanical/materials engineering, chemistry, agriculture, and life/environmental/food sciences concerned with plant factories. - Presents an interdisciplinary approach to advanced plant growth technologies - Features methods for reducing electric energy costs in plant factories and increasing LED efficiency - Considers commercial scale operation

Describes the role of sunlight and moonlight in setting bodily rhythms, which effect every aspect of our health and well-being.

“Artificial Light beats the bejeezus out of the last dozen Thomas Pynchons, the last nineteen Don DeLillos, and the last forty-three Kurt Vonneguts.”—Richard Meltzer “In his ambitious and intriguing debut novel, indie rock expert Greer, author of Guided by Voices, employs one of literature's oldest gambits, the book-within-a-book structure, three times over. A young librarian calling herself Fiat Lux fills a set of notebooks with her passion for books and an enigmatic account of her interlude with Kurt C, a famous indie rock star who appears unheralded in Dayton, Ohio, and buys the long-abandoned Orville Wright mansion. A member of the rock group Whiskey Ships is trying to write about his musical odyssey but longs to return to his book about Orville Wright, whose long-lost diaries also feed the narrative stream. Greer picks the lock on the Kurt Cobain mythos and the rapid commercialization of indie rock…Strong writing and shrewd perceptions prevail, backed by wry humor, compelling stumblebum characters, a true-blue louche atmosphere, and arresting insights into the dream of art, be it literature or rock and roll.”—Booklist

This “superb history” of artificial light traces the evolution of society—“invariably fascinating and often original . . . [it] amply lives up to its title” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). In Brilliant, Jane Brox explores humankind’s ever-changing relationship to artificial light, from the stone lamps of the Pleistocene to the LEDs embedded in fabrics of the future. More than a survey of technological development, this sweeping history reveals how artificial light changed our world, and how those social and cultural changes in turn led to the pursuit of more ways of spreading, maintaining, and controlling light. Brox plumbs the class implications of light—who had it, who didn’t—through the centuries when crude lamps and tallow candles constricted waking hours. She identifies the pursuit of whale oil as the first time the need for light thrust us toward an environmental tipping point. Only decades later, gas street lights opened up the evening hours to leisure, which changed the ways we live and sleep and the world’s ecosystems. Edison’s bulbs produced a light that seemed to its users all but divorced from human effort or cost. And yet, as Brox’s informative portrait of our current grid system shows, the cost is ever with us. Brilliant is infused with human voices, startling insights, and timely questions about how our future lives will be shaped by light

A deeply panoramic tour of the night, from its brightest spots to the darkest skies we have left. A starry night is one of nature's most magical wonders. Yet in our artificially lit world, three-quarters of Americans' eyes never switch to night vision and most of us no longer experience true darkness. In The End of Night, Paul Bogard restores our awareness of the spectacularly primal, wildly dark night sky and how it has influenced the human experience across everything from science to art. From Las Vegas' Luxor Beam -- the brightest single spot on this planet -- to nights so starlit the sky looks like snow, Bogard blends personal narrative, natural history, science, and history to shed light on the importance of darkness -- what we've lost, what we still have, and what we might regain -- and the simple ways we can reduce the brightness of our nights tonight.