Blue LEDs Causing Driving Woes
June 7, 2021
The light-emitting diodes used in new automobile headlights often cause problems for oncoming drivers, the New York Times reports. The trouble arises in large part from the blue light the LEDs emit. As a remarkable scientific advance, blue-emitting LEDs won a Nobel Prize for their discoverers. But as the materials scientist Ainissa Ramirez recounts in Issues, the lights also turned out to come with a variety of unintended consequences. And she cites this as a prime example of why society, higher education, and scientists themselves should pay early and deep attention to the full potential effects of technological innovations.