LED Efficiency & Usage

• Natural History Museum had its rotunda building renovated
  
• Replaced incandescent bulbs with LED bulbs
• Saved energy in more than one way
  

LEDs?

Maintenance workers for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County used to have to go up a tall ladder to replace incandescent bulbs hung 30 feet high in the rotunda building several times a week, said Don Webb, president of Cordell Corporation, a boutique firm that manages the development of large assembly facilities such as the museum. Then in April 2008, the museum had Webb’s company replace the incandescent bulbs with 144 different bulbs. Now, maintenance workers won’t have to replace the new bulbs for up to ten years.


The replacement bulbs contain light emitting diodes, or LEDs. They are primarily a light source, but have also ventured into the medical and traffic safety fields. When used in bulbs, a cluster of LEDs serve as the source of light as the filament does for a regular bulb. LEDs are the tiny lights often seen in electronics such as multiline telephones, in which the little red light means someone is on a particular line, or the small light on a stereo or television that tells you its on. Individually, they are no bigger than a jellybean. But when many LEDs are put together in a larger product array, they can serve as the television screen itself.

The Change

This isn’t why the Natural History Museum chose LEDs over compact incandescents though. Changing bulbs was becoming too labor-intensive, said Webb. So instead of having someone continue to change the lights multiple times every week, the museum replaced the incandescent bulbs with a set of “theatrical bulbs with custom LED fixtures that look identical to those original bulbs,” he said. The application of theatrical bulbs is architectural, to give a desired lighting effect as on movie sets. Webb said the challenge was replicating the look that the previous bulbs gave. The architect of the building originally set up the lights in a certain fashion that gave the exhibits the intended historical appearance. Even a slightly different look was not good enough. The LED bulbs were perfect, said Webb.

“They really do look identical,” Webb said—the same shape, color and warmth of incandescent. But at only 1.5 watts each, LEDs have a much greater lifespan.

The museum, located on Exposition Boulevard in Los Angeles near the University of Southern California, houses more than 35 million specimens and artifacts. It’s the largest natural and historical museum in the Western United States, containing exhibits ranging from insects to dinosaurs and Native American displays to Hollywood memorabilia.

Human Energy

Webb said that while they were doing major renovations on the rotunda building, they looked at the light fixtures and decided that they wanted more energy conservation from them. But the LEDs saved the museum energy in more ways than one, he said.

Before the LEDs were installed, the building’s substantial number of 150-watt incandescent bulbs, which generate light by heating up, produced a lot of heat, Webb said, so the museum had to specially air-condition the building. LEDs are lit when the semi-conductor, a little electrical chip, in them receives a small amount of current, generating almost no heat. After replacing the incandescent bulbs with LED bulbs, Webb said that the museum also ended up saving electricity for air conditioning, as well as “human energy” from demanding maintenance.

Webb said that the Natural History Museum plans to have Cordell Corp. install LED bulbs in several other locations as renovations continue.

LED light as a therapy

• Known as LED, or Deep Penetrating Light Therapy
• Used to heal external (scars, cuts) and internal (pain, fractures)
• Use of therapy on rise, but not in mainstream yet
  

Light therapy

Light emitting diodes (LEDs), are primarily a source of efficient light. However, they also benefit society in the medical field. Harry Latterman, a scientist from Arizona who used to be the operations manager for a small laser company, has been working with LEDs as a tool for physical therapy for 20 years. It’s a specialized therapy called LED light therapy, which involves red LEDs being shined in contact with physical conditions ranging from scars and cuts to internal damage and impairment. Latterman said that the light from the LEDs enter the tissue and revitalize inactive molecules over time. The process speeds up skin-level healing, and in more serious cases it makes healing and recovery possible when it originally wasn’t.

There is a lot of skepticism about the effectiveness of this treatment in the medical industry, but Latterman says he has many times witnessed LED therapy work miracles.

A lady Latterman knew had been told she would need to have surgery in 45 days on her eyes to remove the cataracts, a disease that makes the natural lenses in the eyes blurry. She got a hold of a red LED cluster, and pressed the light against her closed eyes for about a minute every day. Latterman said that after 15 days of doing so, she started seeing better. When the time for surgery had arrived, she no longer had cataracts.

Skepticism

Latterman says that the main argument skeptics of the therapy pose is the possibility of “the placebo effect”—the perceived improvement seen in one’s health because one expects it while under treatment, when in actuality the treatment has no effect. Latterman says animals help provide evidence to defend against the claim of the placebo effect. There is no placebo effect in animals, so if a treatment is given to one and its condition improves also, the argument is invalid.

This was just the case for the lady whose cataracts were gone after LED therapy. Latterman said that the lady’s neighbor had a dog that was nearly blind. She gave him the LED cluster to use on his dog, and eventually its vision was greatly improved as well.

Pain relief

Latterman said he once gave LEDs to an elder woman in Marina del Rey, Calif. who suffered from arthritis. She was forced to stay downstairs in her home because she couldn’t walk up and down the stairs with her bad knees, and she needed both hands to lift a coffee mug and open the front door because she had bad hands. After a time of treating her hands and knees with the LEDs he had given her, she invited Latterman over. When he arrived, Latterman said she opened the door for him, walked up and down the stairs and said, “Look what I’m doing!”

Latterman continues to spread the word about LED light therapy despite the skepticism it receives. He says he hopes it will eventually be recognized globally in the medical field for its effectiveness.

The parallelism of Bynum's two injuries

In a Jan. 13, 2008 NBA game versus the Memphis Grizzlies, the Los Angeles Lakers' Center Andrew Bynum injured his left knee after landing awkwardly on his teammate Lamar Odom, ending Bynum's season. The following year, with about seven minutes left in a Jan. 31, 2009 game also versus the Memphis Grizzlies, Bynum again injured his knee, only this time his right knee after teammate Kobe Bryant crashed into it after missing a lay-up.

What makes these two injuries interesting are their astounding similarities. In both cases:

• Andrew Bynum was the one injured
  
• It occurred in the month of January on a date containing the numerals 1 and 3 (in 2008 it was the 13th and in 2009 it was the 31st)
• Was in a game versus the Memphis Grizzlies
• Caused by/involved a fellow teammate (2008 Odom and 2009 Bryant)
• Was an injury to the knee (2008 left knee, 2009 right knee and different diagnoses)
• Return estimated to be by the end of the season (2008 season never returned, 2009 yet to return)
• Bynum had been playing best stretch of basketball before injury (2009 averaged 26 points, 14 rebounds, and three blocks in last five games)

However, the circumstances and results of the two injuries were different in a few significant ways. In the 2008 injury, Bynum was diagnosed with a dislocated left kneecap, and was later informed that it required surgery, which further prolonged his timetable for return to be the following season. In the 2009 season injury, Bynum was at first diagnosed with a sprained right knee. Later, on Feb. 2 he was diagnosed officially with a torn medial collareral ligament (MCL), which is located on the left side of the right knee. MCL's are not as severe as dislocations, and they do not require surgery.


The mere difference in diagnoses is enough to keep Laker fans believing Bynum will return before the season's end. Along with a diagnosis this year, Bynum was given a timeframe of eight to 12 weeks for return. A best case scenario would mean a March 29 return in a game in Atlanta versus the Hawks. Twelve weeks would mean returning by the end of the first round of play-offs, still giving the Lakers a great amount of games to use Bynum's height, strength, skill, and presence to their great advantage.

However, the Lakers' win-loss record alone is keeping fans optimistic and cheery. After Friday evening's victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Lakers have won their last 14 of 17 games since Bynum was injured. Currently, with 50 wins and 12 losses on the season, the Lakers hold the league's best record, and have held it for a few weeks now.

Even last season, without Bynum, the Lakers were only two victories away from a championship--that is, after the team management pulled off a rather uneven trade to acquire all-star Pau Gasol.


Fortunately, Bynum, his teammates, and fans are not as worried about this season's injury as they are about last season's. After rehabilitating from a serious injury last year, Bynum knows exactly what it takes for him to return to basketball shape, and he told the media he is confident he can make it back this season. According to Lakers.com Injury News, "Lakers center Andrew Bynum has progressed in his rehabilitation regiment to include cardio work on a stationary bicycle as well as on a Precor machine. The Precor machine simulates cross country skiing and is popular with athletes because it does not create any impact on one’s joints."

Los Angeles awaits his return.

Kobe Bryant's right hand

The Los Angeles Lakers' star shooting guard, Kobe Bryant, has banged up his shooting hand (right) quite a bit, to say the least, and yet he is putting up MVP numbers again this season.

It all started last season in 2008 when Bryant dislocated his right pinky in a game versus the New Jersey Nets on Feb. 5. According to Lakers.com injury news, Bryant then aggravated his pinky in a game versus the Minnesota Timberwolves on Feb. 13. The next day, he was "...diagnosed with a complete tear of the radial collateral ligament, an avulsion fracture, and a volar plate injury at the MCP joint of the small finger of this right hand.”

Bryant was told that the injury would require surgery to fix completely, forcing him to miss around six weeks or more. Bryant decided on playing through the injury, and planned to get the surgery done after both the NBA season and play-offs as well as Team USA Basketball's gold medal run in the 2008 Olympics. Bryant ended up having a MVP-winning season, and then led his team to the finals, where they lost two games to four against the Boston Celtics. He did, though, help Team USA win gold.

However, after the Olympics ended, Bryant was told by the doctor that surgery would keep him out longer than initially expected. Bryant decided on holding off on surgery, feeling he had adapted perfectly to playing with it, not wanting to miss out on the Lakers' early portion of the season.

Then, this season in a Jan. 19 game versus the Cleveland Cavaliers, Bryant dislocated his right ring finger while trying to poke the ball out of the hands of Cavaliers' star LeBron James.


The Lakers then called a time-out to take care of Bryant's injury. Their team athletic trainer, Gary Vitti, popped Bryant's dislocated finger back in. Vitti then wrapped it up and Bryant returned to the court. Fighting through the evidently excruciating pain, Bryant helped his team defeat the Cavaliers, 105-88, with only three good fingers on his right hand.

Fortunately, the dislocation didn't cause any serious damage, nor did it require any surgery. So far, Bryant has not missed a game since the 2006-2007 season.


A little over a week later, in a game versus the Charlotte Bobcats, Bryant skinned and cut his right palm while diving for a loose ball. Bryant fought to keep his team in the game, but was fouled out in the final minute of the first of two overtimes. The Lakers ended up losing in double overtime, 110-117.

A few days later on Jan. 30 in a game versus the Timberwolves, Bryant reopened the cut on his right palm after dunking the ball. It was bandaged and he returned to the game to lead the Lakers to a 132-119 victory. A day later, Bryant fell into teammate Andrew Bynum's right knee, injuring him.


Since then, Bryant has led his team to the league's best record at 50 wins and 12 losses, and hopes that by this time next year, he'll have another ring to put on his fingers.