Gizmodo buddy Kate Greene interviewed QD Vision's Seth Coe Sullivan and the founder of the MIT spinoff explained the process as such:

The quantum dot lighting solution is relatively simple: Adding red quantum dots to a white LED makes the resulting white light appear warmer. Light from the LED gives electrons in the quantum dots an energetic boost for a short time; when the electrons return to their lower energy state, they emit a photon, a process called photoluminescence. (Photoluminescence is in contrast to electroluminescence, in which electric current, not light, excites electrons.)

Unlike filters, the method does not soak up light and hurt efficiency — they're taking "blue photons from the LED and outputting red photons from the quantum dots." QD Vision's tech got some press earlier in the year, but I hadn't noticed it before writing my ode to the classic lightbulb. And although the bulbs aren't out yet, they'll be $100 when they are. We'll have to take one for a spin when they come around. And if they work, and last as long as they say they should, I'm going to kiss the incandescent goodbye forever. [Kate Greene]

We take the miracle of the lightbulb for granted. We've been doing this for probably almost 100 years now, within a generation or two after the world figured out AC was the way to send power over distance, and the subsequent widespread adoption. But as LEDs get better and studies are done, the old regular lightbulb is going to villainized as an energy hog. Which it is.

A study covered by the NYTimes today drives the point home even further. Done by lightbulb company (of the old and new kind) Osram, it went beyond the typical lumen-per-watt analysis and studied the entire lifecycle, from manufacturing to disposal. And it was damning. Even considering the relative complication of an LED lightbulb's design, the equivalent life of incandescent bulbs are not as green. Five times less green, they say.

I lament every study like this that passes the news wire. Some others are skeptical of LED lightbulbs today, even while believing in the future of them. Maggie Koerth-Baker at Boingboing covers LED lighting as a beat and says that the best lights are commercial—that the 20 dollar kind at Home Depot are basically, a big fat lie. The thousands of hours they're supposed to live are often off by factors of 20, and that throws the whole green equation off, if you assume Osram didn't do real testing of LED life. And I doubt they did since they're the manufacturer of bulbs, but have no data here. Let's believe that for a moment, ignoring the vague conflicts of interest that may exist in a company that sells lightbulbs, even if it sells both. No matter what you say, LED lightbulbs are efficient as hell. And the new and efficient must replace the old.

This desertion of technology where raw energy is being wasted has a side effect of eliminating the beauty that comes from devices closely harnessing and taming the most primal forces. In the last half century, I feel as if we've turned away from wanting to know where untamed power comes from, much like we stopped wanting to know where meat comes from. First the nuke plants went boom in Chernobyl, and then our dreams for a safe, nuclear-powered future go with it. And steam-powered devices, even in play, are ok, as long as we don't talk about the majority of steam powered devices being powered by ugly, sooty coal. Electric cars are seen as far more futuristic, efficient and cool than the muscular cars that harness fire—fire!—in blocks of metal, powered by sipping pickled dinosaur juice. Electric ranges are being used in the most tech'd high end restaurants for sake of control and efficiency, and although BBQ will never die, I would find it hard to argue with the efficiency of electric range if I were building a new home. We think "fire"—smoke or smokeless—is primitive and has no place in our future. Consider this all more man vs nature conflict, where man further tames the wild and natural. And another step in the suppression of an analog world by digital means. This decade, the lightbulb, driven by hot filament so ready to ignite if only it were given oxygen and a chance, finds itself under this same scrutiny. This coming decade will find it a relic and a terrible thing to have around, given a greener alternative.

Somewhere along the line, because of these treehuggers and the energy bean counters and studies obsessed with efficiency, we forgot about how wonderful lightbulbs look. The hot light you'd find in a blacksmith's forge as he hammered away at horseshoes. Or a miniature Sun, (although nothing alike) because of the way the yellow lights brand marks into your eyes if you stare directly at them. Like the fire of a hundred candles, on demand. I like this. But never mind that, the studies say. We will come leaps and bounds forward with LED lightbulbs. For efficiency!

Most of this does not concern me, or move me to object in any way to LED lightbulbs, as much as the thought of LED light itself, so alien, in my house. In wikipedia, we get a description, under the disadvantages of the problems of white LEDs that "spike at 460 nm and dip at 500 nm," causing objects to be "perceived differently under cool-white LED illumination than sunlight or incandescent sources, due to metamerism." I don't know what that means, exactly, but it's easy to imagine and be horrified by the thought of my home filled with the kind of blue/white lighting more appropriate for the bridge of a space ship than the place where my intimate life occurs. I cannot imagine and would not read, make love, bathe, have friends over, eat dinner, listen to music or play with my dogs under LED lighting blue enough to make hospital or high school lighting fixtures look as natural as skylights after sunrise.

The general trend is that LEDs get twice as bright/efficient every 36 months, but brightness is not the issue here. They should stop this research, and focus on whatever it takes to make LED lightbulbs look like they're powered by hot tungsten on the verge of incinerating itself to illuminate our private night lives. That kind of raw power and energy might be a wasteful relic of our past, but quality of glow is something we should be mindful of measuring, too. Lightbulb makers, you should not forget where we came from when building the future.

*OLED lights like this one are supposedly closer to traditional bulbs in quality but if regular LED isn't price or energy efficient yet, um, OLED lights like this one aren't going to be closer.

To ensure they stay upright, there's a magnet placed in the base of the bulb that corresponds to one in the acrylic base. But if you're stylish and safe enough to have an open flame on your desk, you'd better be rich, too—there are only 66 sets available, selling for $650 each. [Craziest Gadgets via Gizmag]

Check out the Instructables guide for details on how to hollow out light bulbs and build the necessary stands without cutting up your hands. There are even some bonus light bulb projects on there.

Now, how about a few "How many ___ does it take to change a light bulb" jokes before you run off to DIY? [Instructables]

The bulbs, which cost $35 each (!), are rated for 35,000 hours of use and only consumes 4W of electricity (compared to a 25W incandescent), which means if you're afraid of the dark and run it 8 hours a day for an entire year, it'll only cost $1.75. It's fully dimmable and, unlike other LED lights, cool to the touch, thanks to the oh-so-hardcore liquid cooling. The bulbs come in "warm white" and "daylight" flavors, and are available now. [Eternaleds via Engadget]

The NY Times' Green Inc. blog says the inner capsule of these new bulbs, developed by California-based Deposition Sciences, is coated with a material that is able to reflect the heat back onto the filament, part of which is converted back into light. This technology, currently featured in Philips Halogena Energy Savers line, has resulted in the bulb using 30% less power and lasting 3x longer than normal incandescents.

And what about CFLs you ask? Yes they're still about 2.5x more efficient than these new incandescent bulbs. But these new bulbs will get more efficient with time, don't take forever to warm up to full brightness, don't make your home feel like a lab or mental institution and don't contain mercury (famed destroyer of Jeremy Piven and all-around, pain-in-the-ass substance to dispose of). But they also cost $5 a bulb. [Green Inc. via Slashdot]

The lamps were made by Alan Lishness over at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. The round bulbed one was made from a water-cooled dual processor yanked from an Apple G5 desktop, an hour meter, an aircraft compass and 40W LED bulbs.

The other one is the child of a signal switching relay manufactured by the General Railway Signal Company in 1924. The perforated cylinders used to be ink canisters designed for high-speed fabric printing. Don't they make you want to raid your garage and see what you can create? [Lishness - Thanks Alan!]

Thanks to Bluetooth, audio would be transmitted wirelessly from your computer or cellphone to the speaker system contained within each LED bulb. Because LEDs don't produce a lot of heat, I would assume that this idea is actually plausible. The only downside is that the concept, in its current form, calls for a manual volume adjustment by turning the top of the bulb. Obviously, it would be ideal if a network of several of these bulbs could be controlled with a single remote. Otherwise, this is a brilliant idea that I can only hope becomes reality sometime in the near future. [Yanko]

The $50 Bird Pendant Light by Sweden-based artist Hung Ming Chen is a simple brass fixture that squeezes onto a bare bulb. And while we're guessing it might get a little hot, there's certainly no easier way to half-assedly decorate your basement. Now just to gather the motivation to actually replace that burned out lightbulb first. [UrbanOutfitters via Nerd Approved]

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

[Ecosaber Shirt]

The Barcelona-born designer says that you can do what you want with the mice after you've caught them. Seeing as I don't have a python, I think I'll make myself a mouse-fur bikini. [Roger Arquer via Dezeen]

Product Page [Via technabob]

Wagner was in residence at the Baltimore Museum of Industry for the past two years, and took super-sharp shots of her favorite bulbs, chosen from the museum's collection of more than 50,000 examples. If you can't get to the exhibition, feast your eyes on a dozen of her photos in the gallery below. It's positively illuminating. – Charlie White

Gallery Site [Stephen Wirtz Gallery, via boingboing]