“As detailed in his 1958 book, My Ivory Cellar, Ott was stymied while filming time-lapse sequences of a pumpkin’s growth in his basement studio for Disney. Pinkish fluorescent light wilted the plant’s female flowers, but when he replaced the lights with bluish fluorescent bulbs and raised a new pumpkin, the male flowers perished. Based on these findings – and coupled with difficulties he’d encountered growing morning glories, corn, and apples – Ott deduced that light wavelength could dramatically affect plant maturation, and that full-spectrum light, the kind that streams from the sun, greatly enhanced growth. He also found his greenhouses’ glass windowpanes, which absorbed ultraviolet wavelengths, were inferior to clear plastic sheeting, which transmits UV light. Finally, he suspected that spending time outdoors basking in full-spectrum light, without wearing his UV-blocking eyeglasses or sunglasses, significantly alleviated the arthritis in his hip – perhaps because sunlight triggered salutary responses in the endocrine system.”