Dr Quinn, an ophthalmologist at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, found that chickens kept in continuous light fed better than other birds, but also developed a lot of eye abnormalities. He gave a questionnaire to the parents of 479 children he treated, asking whether the children slept in the dark, with a night light, or with a room light. Darkness is hard to find Dr Quinn said his findings were strictly provisional, and two later studies had failed to replicate his results. But he believed his theory warranted further testing. Another contributor to the programme is an astrophysicist, Dr Chris Baddiley, who lives in the United Kingdom, and finds the brightness of the night sky makes his work increasingly difficult.
Nobody can see the stars.
It is young people who are switched on to science and technology quite often by seeing the glories of the Milky Way on a dark clear night. Dr Baddiley said the amount of electricity wasted in the UK by lights which pointed straight up into the sky roughly equalled the continuous output of two power stations. Costing the Earth was broadcast on BBC Radio Four at 2100 BST on 5 October.