[Documentary] Exploring The Spectrum | Dr John Nash Ott (1974)

[Tintin]

Description provided by Brian Rommele:

Exploring the Spectrum, a groundbreaking 1974 documentary by Dr. John Nash Ott.

A captivating journey into the science of photobiology and the profound impact of light on health.

A pioneer in time-lapse photography and full-spectrum lighting, Dr. Ott reveals how natural and artificial light influences the growth, behavior, and well-being of plants, animals, and humans.

Through mesmerizing visuals and innovative experiments, the film challenges conventional wisdom, questioning whether fluorescent lights, UV-blocking glasses, and indoor lifestyles contribute to health issues like cancer, learning disorders, and immune system weaknesses.

Ott’s work highlights the essential role of natural sunlight and balanced light frequencies in sustaining life, urging us to rethink our relationship with the light that surrounds us.

This thought-provoking documentary remains a timeless exploration of a vital, yet often overlooked, aspect of our environment.

---

This could equally well have lived in the Health and Wellness section as it is absolutely relevant to that also.

This revealing and educational documentary is also in our library now.

[Casey Claar]

Tintin, no video seems to load for me. There is just a white box with a grey bar at the bottom. When I press "play" nothing happens. ( just reporting ).

Is this happening with anyone else?? I often see these white boxes instead of video in our threads.

[Ravenlocke]

The film was made about Dr John Nash Ott.

Apparently Dr Ott passed in 2000. Here is an article about him.

https://www.makegreatlight.com/about...spectrum-light

Dr. Ott – Pioneer of Full Spectrum Light
April 14, 2015

This past week marked the anniversary of the passing of Dr. John Nash Ott (1901 – 2000). Dr. Ott was a true pioneer in the discovery of how full spectrum light can benefit the health of plants, animals and humans. Let’s reflect on Dr. Ott’s amazing career.

Time Lapse Photography

John Ott started his career as a banker in Chicago. In his spare time, he dabbled in time-lapse photography, specifically photographing plants as they germinated from seed to full-growth. He would take photographs of plants opening and fruit ripening. No doubt if you ever taken biology in high school, you would know exactly what I mean. Photobiology was a relatively new field at the time, but Dr. Ott quickly mastered the practice of turning time-lapse photos into film. His early works were published on Chicago television and caught the eye of Walt Disney.

In the 1950’s, Disney commissioned him to do several documentaries with time-lapse photography. Classic documentaries, such as Secrets of Life (1956), pioneered the use of time-lapse photography in nature films, a practice still in use today.

Full Spectrum Light and Plants

Dr. Ott found that by varying the amount of water and the color temperature of the lighting, he could manipulate flowering and fruit bearing. Dr. Ott even found a way to change the gender of plants by manipulating the color spectrum from lighting. His greenhouse experiments on the possible connection between full spectrum light and plant growth patterns were so impressive that Loyola University awarded him with a honorary doctorate in science.

Eventually, Dr. Ott left the banking industry and founded the Environmental Health and Light Research Institute to continue his studies into the ways in which light can, in the correct spectral balance, enhance the health of plants, animals, and humans. He also found that the absence of properly balanced light could lead to health disorders in people. He discovered that full spectrum light is as essential to people as it is to plants.

Full Spectrum Light and Health

Dr. Ott published his studies in the groundbreaking book Health and Light (1973). He introduced us to his theory of “malillumination”, a condition he likens to malnutrition. Malillumination, he theorized, is brought about by our unintentional limiting of our intake of full spectrum daylight by shielding ourselves from natural light with tinted windows, sunglasses, sun block, etc. and spending increased amounts of time in fluorescent lit environments. Fluorescent light does not produce a full spectrum of light.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=bw6hcTGND3c

Here is a quote from an interview in the 1980’s.

My studies have indicated that light is a nutrient, similar to all the other nutrients we take in through food, and that we need the full spectrum range of natural daylight. This is a fact long since proven by science. In 1967, a paper presented by three Russian scientists to the International Committee on Illumination said, “If human skin is not exposed to solar radiation (direct or scattered) for long periods of time, disturbances will occur in the physiological equilibrium of the human system. The result will be functional disorders of the nervous system and a vitamin-D deficiency, a weakening of the body’s defenses, and an aggravation of chronic diseases.”

He went on and founded his own successful lighting company to produce full spectrum light bulbs. His family business is still in operation today. After retiring into the Florida sunshine (which he soaked in for a minimum of one hour per day), Dr. Ott passed away in 2000.

What is truly impressive to me about Dr. Ott is that he had no formal college education. His banking employer enrolled him in some business courses, but he never studied biology, botany or physics. Yet through his own experimentation and keen scientific intellect he changed the way we look at the relationship between lighting and health.

Dr. Ott paved the way for companies such as ours. And we salute this great, self-made, self-educated man.

Resources:

IMDB
Wikipedia
Interview
Books

[Ravenlocke]

This is a very important part of the study,

https://x.com/BrianRoemmele/status/1921610448492990660

[Ravenlocke]

I never gave it a thought but doing embroidery, I needed a light at night to see the true color of the threads and many embroiderers use the Ott light and recommend buying an Ott light lamp.

Also now I get confirmation for myself, but daily I put food for the birds outside and sometimes when they scatter off a bird will hit the glass window and gets stunned. So I always pick them up and cup them in my hands and stand in the sun, till they recover and fly off on their own.

[Strat]

Thanks for this. I love documentaries and I'm always on the lookout for a new one.

Posted by Casey Claar (here)
Tintin, no video seems to load for me. There is just a white box with a grey bar at the bottom. When I press "play" nothing happens. ( just reporting ).

Is this happening with anyone else?? I often see these white boxes instead of video in our threads.

Have you tweaked your browser settings at any point? Certain security measures will block videos. Tintin's post works for me.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Ravenlocke (here)
I never gave it a thought but doing embroidery, I needed a light at night to see the true color of the threads and many embroiderers use the Ott light and recommend buying an Ott light lamp.

https://ottlite.com/collections/home-and-office

I have a couple of OttLite lamps, very much like these (but older versions) which I bought 13 years ago and are still as good as new.

[Ravenlocke]

Posted by Casey Claar (here)
Tintin, no video seems to load for me. There is just a white box with a grey bar at the bottom. When I press "play" nothing happens. ( just reporting ).

Is this happening with anyone else?? I often see these white boxes instead of video in our threads.

It does happen to me too sometimes with Tintin posts and some others, they show as white with a black arrow in the middle.

[onawah]

There are two relevant threads here:
https://projectavalon.net/forum4/sho...rum#post289555
and here:
https://projectavalon.net/forum4/sho...Ott#post701617

I've been using Full Spectrum light bulbs for years now, as I've been familiar with John Ott's work for a long time.
I was buying FS bulbs from Dr. Mercola's site for a while, but when he discontinued them, I found a number of other sources online.
I have a lot of house plants in my home but not enough windows to keep them happy; the Full Spectrum lighting helps a lot.
For people with SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), they are also very helpful.

[Ravenlocke]

Posted by Ravenlocke (here)

Posted by Casey Claar (here)
Tintin, no video seems to load for me. There is just a white box with a grey bar at the bottom. When I press "play" nothing happens. ( just reporting ).

Is this happening with anyone else?? I often see these white boxes instead of video in our threads.

It does happen to me too sometimes with Tintin posts and some others, they show as white with a black arrow in the middle.

Hi Casey

Can you see this one?

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=bw6hcTGND3c

[Casey Claar]

Yes I can!, thank you, Ravenlocke.. YouTube videos always load just fine. I wouldn't know what to tweak to get anything other than the white boxes. Can you see where Tintin's original video is routed from? I am just wondering if it is a particular platform. Thank you so much for your help. Strat, you, too, thank you.

[Ravenlocke]

Posted by Casey Claar (here)
Yes I can!, thank you, Ravenlocke.. YouTube videos always load just fine. I wouldn't know what to tweak to get anything other than the white boxes. Can you see where Tintin's original video is routed from? I am just wondering if it is a particular platform. Thank you so much for your help. Strat, you, too, thank you.

From what I gathered,
I can only tell you that Tintin video came from an X tweet posted by Brian Roemmele, I saw it yesterday while browsing X. But Brian Roemmele did not post the source link in his tweet, as far as I know.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Casey Claar (here)
Yes I can!, thank you, Ravenlocke.. YouTube videos always load just fine. I wouldn't know what to tweak to get anything other than the white boxes. Can you see where Tintin's original video is routed from? I am just wondering if it is a particular platform. Thank you so much for your help. Strat, you, too, thank you.

Casey, if you mean Tintin's video in his post #1, it's hosted on the Avalon server. (i.e. Tintin has downloaded it from somewhere, maybe converted the format to mp4, and then uploaded it again to our server. It's not a direct embed from YouTube, Rumble or Bitchute.)

I suspect that the problem (when it occurs) lies somewhere in the download and conversion. Sometimes when there's an issue no-one can see the video at all, and at other times its visibility seems to depend on the browser the reader is using.

[Casey Claar]

Thank you, Raven, Bill.. this is very helpful. It is maybe the Safari web browser, then. It is the only browser I use on my Mac devices. There is no other (good) option.

[Tintin]

Thanks - all - for the feed here.

The video link is via twittervideodownloader.com. I often use this instead of direct library links: that's the platform. Of course one of the slight perils with using that is should the X user account ever get removed then the link might break. Perhaps I may need to rethink that methodology. Direct library links are of course perfectly fine, mainly, but occasionally our host does undertake random 'work' without any forewarning, and I am cautious about overloading (?) the server traffic there.

It is in the library but the link shared is not the library one.

This is the actual link: https://video.twimg.com/amplify_vide...eYHj75cPDs.mp4

[onawah]

New type of light bulbs

Posted by onawah (here)
I've been using Full Spectrum CFL light bulbs for years, both for myself as I suffer from SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) and I have a lot of indoor plants which don't get enough sunlight. They and I both do a lot better with Full Spectrum lighting, which are much safer than LEDs and the regular CFLs.
But I recently saw the following video which doesn't talk about Full Spectrum bulbs, but a new type which the source claims are much healthier than the other types. I guess I will have to try one to see how they feel and I hope these new ones will succeed in replacing the LEDs if they are truly superior.
I had just bought some new FS bulbs just before I saw this, and I noticed that not nearly as many FS bulbs are being sold now as they are being "phased out" apparently.
(Hyperlinks in the following not embedded here)
Dr Martin Moore-Ede | Why Your Health Hinges on the Light You See
degrees of health
16.1K subscribers
Jan 14, 2025
Degrees of Health Podcast

"The light we see is as crucial as the food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe. Former Harvard Medical School professor and 40-year leading expert in circadian clocks and human health, Dr. Moore-Ede speaks on why our health hinges on getting the right sort of light at the right time.

In this episode, he reveals the dangers of modern LED lighting, which often emits bright but unhealthy "junk light." Just as junk food wreaks havoc on our body, junk light disrupts our circadian rhythms, suppresses melatonin, and contributes to chronic diseases.

We cover:
💤 The Health Risks of LED Lighting: disrupts circadian rhythms, suppresses melatonin, and contributes to chronic diseases
💡 Junk Light and Lumens - how modern lighting regulations prioritise energy efficiency over human health
🕒 Circadian Clocks and Longevity: light as essential for disease prevention and healing
👓 Rise of Myopia in Children: indoor living and reduced exposure to natural light are fueling skyrocketing rates of myopia
🌈 Blue light blocking glasses - do you have the right sort?
🛠️ Practical Solutions for Healthier Lighting: simple changes you can make in your home and your life

Backed by decades of evidence, Dr Martin Moore-Ede shares the science behind why we must prioritise light in our health, and how to optimise our exposure for immediate benefits, and a longer, healthier life.

Find Dr Martin:
Book: https://thelightdoctor.com/
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Light-Doctor-M...
Website: https://circadianlight.org/
Substack: lightdoctormartinmooreede.substack.com
LinkedIn: / martin-moore-ede-80630a12
Instagram: / circadianlightdoctor
Twitter (X): / drmooreede
YouTube: / @drmartinmoore-ede1539
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?...

Mentioned in this episode:
Health and Light by John Ott https://amzn.to/4jdO36v
SORAA - light bulbs with no blue light https://www.soraa.com/
The Body Electric by Robert Becker and Gary Seldon https://amzn.to/4gRiQET
Avoidance of sun exposure is a risk factor for all-cause mortality: results from the Melanoma in Southern Sweden cohort https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1...

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00:00
The Importance of Light for Health
03:20
Evolutionary Perspective on Light Exposure
10:18
Modern Light Sources and Their Impact
17:22
The Role of Light in Childhood Development
21:54
Link Between Light Exposure and Cancer Rates
26:47
Mechanisms of Light and Cancer Suppression
31:32
The Science of Light and Circadian Rhythms
35:02
Engineering Light for Health Benefits
39:38
Regulatory Challenges in Lighting Standards
43:01
Consumer Education and Demand for Healthy Lighting
45:21
Practical Tips for Light Hygiene
48:33
Historical Perspectives on Light and Health
50:19
Future Research Directions in Light Science
52:04
The Impact of Technology on Light Exposure
56:20
The Importance of Natural Sunlight

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=4r09eFmH1aY

Posted by Mark (Star Mariner) (here)
Multiple interconnected factors are involved in the widespread deterioration of modern-day academic performance. Here is another that may possibly be partly to blame. Lighting. Something so simple as the quality of light in a classroom. I do remember from my own school days that I disliked fluorescent lighting. Those tubes are too harsh, and they are prone to flickering, which can be very distracting to a student trying to concentrate. But apparently there's more to it than that, and they've known about it for a great many years.

@newstart_2024
In the 1970s they ran an experiment that still blows minds today.

They took four windowless 1st-grade classrooms, swapped the harsh flickering fluorescent lights for full-spectrum bulbs that mimic real daylight… and filmed what happened next.

The difference is shocking: hyperactive, off-the-wall kids suddenly calm down, sit still, and focus like never before. The control classrooms under standard lights? Chaos as usual.

This is real 1970s footage from Dr. John Ott’s groundbreaking work (1976, Sarasota, FL). His time-lapse cameras caught something schools still ignore: artificial light spectrum and flicker can literally rewire developing brains.

Modern science backs it up hard:
- 2023 meta-review of 59 studies: kids are WAY more sensitive to light color & timing than adults

- Blue-enriched “daylight” lighting improves attention, task-switching, reading fluency

- Poor classroom lighting = higher stress, absenteeism, even myopia risk

- Natural/full-spectrum light = up to 25% higher test scores in some studies

We spend billions on curriculum and tech… but most classrooms still run 1970s prison-grade lighting.

Parents, teachers, anyone with kids: watch this clip and tell me this isn’t worth rethinking.

The 70s called — they were onto something huge.

Who else thinks it’s time for a classroom lighting revolution? Drop your thoughts

https://x.com/newstart_2024/status/1991999231373230464

[onawah]

LED lights are DEVASTATING our bodies, here's why
Redacted
2.85M subscribers
Dec 23, 2025

(Mark Baker's Soft Light Foundation website here: https://www.softlights.org/about/ )

"LED lights are devastating. Devastating to our health. Those aren't my words. Those are the words of our next guest. Which I'll introduce here in a second. But think about how much our lives have changed over the last few decades. Think about now when you go to sleep at night, all of those little LED lights that are surrounding you while you sleep."

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=BH9JrRSqb6Q