A PhD student spent 400 hours counting caterpillars under streetlights. His findings changed what scientists knew about LED lighting
- Image: AI generatedOver three summers, a doctoral researcher named Douglas Boyes spent more than 400 hours crouched beside English roadside hedges after dark, tapping branches with a stick and counting how many moth caterpillars fell onto a canvas tray below.
- Boyes, who split his time between Newcastle University and the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, expected artificial street lighting to reduce caterpillar numbers by something like 10 per cent.
- What he actually found was far more severe, and it revealed something specific about which type of streetlight was doing the most damage.
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- Image: AI generatedOver three summers, a doctoral researcher named Douglas Boyes spent more than 400 hours crouched beside English roadside hedges after dark, tapping branches with a stick and counting how many moth caterpillars fell onto a canvas tray below.
- Boyes, who split his time between Newcastle University and the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, expected artificial street lighting to reduce caterpillar numbers by something like 10 per cent.
- What he actually found was far more severe, and it revealed something specific about which type of streetlight was doing the most damage.
Sources: Times of India