
Portable sunshine: Earbuds that shine light into your ears - Juha
http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2011/02/start/portable-sunshine
======
jot
There's a good discussion about these, including responses from the makers
here: "Valkee Scam" <http://shkspr.mobi/blog/index.php/2011/09/valkee-scam/>

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sambeau
I disagree with what this bit:

    
    
      The brain isn’t designed to get light in to it. If your
      brain is receiving light; there’s a hole in your head.
      That’s not healthy!
    

The brain was not designed.

There are a number of holes in your skull and your ears are two of them.

Whether or not the brain reacts to light is either proven or disproven
depending on whether you find a flaw in this research or can conduct research
that finds against it.

~~~
Tichy
It just seems very unlikely - that reactivity to light would serve no purpose
and hence could be optimized away.

And I think there is something more than "either proven or disproven". If you
claim you have an invisible dragon in your garage, it seems very unlikely that
you are telling the truth. No need to run experiments for that. (brain and
light might be more likely than invisible dragons, just making a point).

~~~
makmanalp
I think it's unlikely too - however I think the point being made is that maybe
it's not completely optimized away _yet_. We are not at the pinnacle of
evolution such that every part we have serves a clear purpose.

~~~
sambeau
Evolution does not optimise away. If a mutation serves no purpose it remains
unless it is replaced for a reason (or a gene has more than one function—God
reuses constants ;-)).

What does 'pinnacle of evolution' mean? Sharks and spiders have been around
since before dinosaurs so they must be there, surely?

Do we reach it if we hit a suitably low level of child mortality?

There is an argument that we are already at the pinnacle of evolution for our
environment and we will remain there until something changes and we are tested
and our children start dying. That mostly happens in chunks… _everything is
fine, everything is fine, everything is fine, bang meteor!_ although it can
happen in smaller steps. Whether we are still evolving in the rich,
medicalised west is a matter of debate. The third world certainly has many
children dying but the cause is often not something that natural selection can
fix: politics & war.

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sambeau
The flip-side of this is that headphones may be _causing_ depression in some
people by blocking light from entering the brain through the ear canal.

Perhaps we should all be taking our earbuds off on sunny days?

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sangfroid
I haven't read all of the comments here, but I come from a pretty good
neuroscience background and have some thoughts on why this looks like baloney.
It's about the way the brain works. The brain itself is not a sensory organ.
It processes signals from sensory organs. Information reaches the eye or the
skin or the tongue as mechanical, chemical, and optical data but then get
transduced into an electrical impulse. Even if there were light receptors in
the brain, it's highly unlikely that they would be so specific that activating
them would cause positive feelings. That's how information gets processed at
the level of our senses, but not in our brains. Individual neurons do not hold
individual memories. Nor do they seem to control specific emotions.

If shining light on the brain actually changed the levels of activity, it
would have an impact on entire neural circuits, not just on this one process.
At least, that's how I see it.

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Tichy
We'll see who has the last laugh, but for now I feel inclined to say "this is
the stupidest thing I have ever heard"...

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pi18n
25 people is not a "clinical study". It is a survey.

~~~
exDM69
I have said this before in HN, but I'll repeat myself: don't trust this study.

The Valkee company is financially backed by ex-Nokia execs and other people
with money and influence in Finland. They have the means to get a small
University in Northern Finland to make a study in their favor.

There have been interesting studies about light sensivity in the skin, so why
not the brain. However, this study doesn't really prove anything.

Also, don't underestimate the value of placebo in the treatment of mental
ailments.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Right! So even as a $185 placebo, its good medicine?

~~~
exDM69
The $185 price probably contributes to the placebo effect. It was expensive so
it _must_ work.

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aes
Once they add the ability to play music they'll have a killer product in their
hands.

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jpalomaki
See for example this: [http://www.futurity.org/top-stories/skins-eye-like-
receptors...](http://www.futurity.org/top-stories/skins-eye-like-receptors-
see-uv-light/) "Skin is able to detect ultraviolet light by using a receptor
previously thought to only exist in the eye."

Having light sensitive cells inside your head (in other places than eyes)
obviously sounds ridiculous if you believe in intelligent design. However if
you think about evolution and how it works, I would say there is pretty good
chance all our cells do not have just the functions they absolutely need to
have.

~~~
scarmig
It's fairly difficult to pinpoint something that humans have that couldn't
have been placed there intelligently. Evolution drives organisms, if at all
possible, to co-opt anything that develops because of structural constraints.
Most of the time it is possible.

This class of traits is something that Steven J Gould named as evolutionary
spandrels. So in practice, I would expect the ultraviolet receptors in the
skin to have at least one meaningful function. The fact that exposing people
to ultraviolet light changes their hormonal balance would tend to suggest this
as well. They're definitely doing something.

As a separate argument, a creationist could also provide some information
theoretic arguments for why some cells have pointless features. Unnecessary
complexity in a biological organism, like in any other computer program, is a
dangerous risk. As risk management, we might want to handle that danger by
accepting a harmless redundancy and not building an additional subsystem that
chaotically interacts with all our other subsystems.

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tobylane
Commuters have plenty of artificial light around them. Cyclists and walkers
would need this more, but it probably blocks out sound. The whole artificial
sun-like light thing does make sense, but mostly as a bedroom light.

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mooism2
Even assuming this works reliably, £160 seems overpriced for what's basically
a couple of small torches.

~~~
The_Sponge
This sort of thing just screams bullshit. Yes, I get that light therapy or
whatever it's called is prescribed but somehow I doubt that two little LEDs
shoved in your ears is anything close to a substitute.

~~~
milep
These are aimed for people suffering the winter depression
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_affective_disorder>

~~~
The_Sponge
That's what I was thinking of. But, like I said, I doubt little ear lights are
a substitute for giant light panels.

Then again, maybe they are. It's just too suspicious.

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Achshar
Has any study been conducted about any possible side effects any such thing
would have? after all if light to skull would have been so useful then
evolution should have made it so. If it isn't so then either its of not much
use or it has some bad effects too.

~~~
Torn
You misunderstand evolution. The idea is to be _good enough_ to reproduce, not
to be optimal. Hence why humans have loads of vestigial crap that serves no
purpose.

~~~
martinkallstrom
But we also have stuff that serves a purpose but without which we would still
be good enough to reproduce. Eyebrows for example, are a good shield for your
eyes against snow and dust falling from above. I'm happy to have them. But I
can't imagine survival ever depending on them. Or is their existence proof
that humans at some point in evolution got a real advantage from eyebrows in
regards to reproduction? (serious question, I'm not being sarcastic)

~~~
sambeau
The eyebrow may have been of use when humans had predators who attacked in the
rain, or it may have been advantageous to a distant ancestor who lived through
a one-off natural disaster: a meteor strike or a volcano. It may also be an
effective way to communicate silently when your hands are busy elsewhere, or a
vital addition to those who use fire.

The eyebrow might also have never been of any competitive advantage without
also being a hindrance in any way.

Evolution is all about the death of children. If a mutation leads to the death
of its carrier before they can reproduce then it will be naturally selected
out of the gene pool. Anything that isn't removed in this way will still
remain.

In a smaller way if a mutation helps a parent (or other relation) to raise
more children to adulthood then more copies of the mutation will appear in the
gene pool.

All mutations start out without a use. Maybe the advantage that an eyebrow
brings has yet to be realised.

