It was a dark and gloomy Saturday.

There was 3:54 left in the third quarter and Kansas University’s football team was down 57-to-nothing to in-state rival Kansas State University.

The weather – it had been sleeting and cold earlier – matched my mood as a KU fan. I left the KJHK free Internet radio broadcast on KUsports.com and went down to my basement to do some laundry.

A light bulb had burned out, so I grabbed a new one and twisted it in.

Brightening up the basement seemed to improve my mood briefly. And I realized how important light becomes during the fall when the days grow shorter and there are fewer sunny days.

Before heading back to the game, I decided to check what’s out there in the way of home lighting and how technology helps us cope with the darker moments of life.

New light bulbs

Interestingly, light bulbs showed up on the scene about five years after the first college football league was formed.

American inventor Thomas Edison is usually credited for bringing us the first working incandescent bulb back in 1879, although English inventor Joseph Swan actually beat him by a year.

Since then, standard light bulbs haven’t really changed all that much. But some new developments may make changing light bulbs nearly obsolete.

Flipping the switch

¢ How light bulbs work¢ The first true incandescent light bulb

Fluorescent lights, which last about 10 times longer than standard bulbs, are now available in a variety of shapes and sizes.

Rather than the long straight tubes that provided harsh white lights and buzzing sounds, you can find flicker-free fluorescent lights in a number of hues and shades that will fit into almost any light fixture.

If you’re a little more adventurous, you might check out some of the new combination xenon/halogen lights, known as xelogen bulbs.

Where halogen light bulbs last about 10 times as long as standard bulbs, xelogen bulbs last 10 times as long as halogen lights.

Also, unlike halogen bulbs, you can touch xelogen bulbs with your fingers without worrying the oil from your skin will lessen the bulb’s life.

Xelogen bulbs also put out less heat than halogen bulbs and they’re under less pressure.

LEDs leading the way

One of the most promising technologies in lighting are gallium nitride, solid-state lights.

Instead of the tungsten filaments used in most household light bulbs, which burn off 90 percent of their energy in heat, gallium nitride lights offer cooler, more efficient light.

Gallium nitride crystals are semiconductors that glow when electricity passes through them. They’re used to create light-emitting diodes, or LEDs.

First used in early calculators and later hand-held games, LEDs are now growing in use for colorful outdoor lighted signs, traffic lights and even car brake lights.

Last summer, U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham endorsed the development of LEDs at an energy efficiency forum in Washington, D.C. Abraham said the benefits of the more efficient lighting include lower electric bills for homes and businesses.

Also, LED lights last longer – an LED light would last 100,000 hours compared to 1,000 hours for a standard light bulb.

So far, LED technology is not quite yet good enough to match the brightness of an incandescent bulb. Manufacturers are saying they’ve got them about as light as a flashlight bulb. But they’re still about 10 years away from replacing a regular light bulb.

Flexible television screens

Opsys Limited, an Oxford-based research firm, (http://www.opsysdisplays.com/) is one of the companies developing lighting products based on chemical materials, called dendrimers, that produce light when a low-level of electricity passes through them.

Because these organic, light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs, are in a solution, they can be printed onto a surface.

That could allow for light-emitting, dendrimer-based flat computer or TV displays to be printed on almost any surface, from a window pane to a food package.

Ospys even envisions getting football game scores displayed on the glass of beer you’re drinking.

Seeing the light

“The clock can’t tick off fast enough for Jayhawk fans,” the announcer said as the KU-K-State game clock was down to less than a minute, with K-State up 64-0.

As the game ended, a gloomy purple hue seemed to hover over Lawrence.

I went back to reading more about light bulb development and ran across some research being done at Sandia National Laboratories (http://www.sandia.gov/media/NewsRel/NR2002/tungsten.htm) on a tungsten photonic lattice. Such a photonic lattice produces less heat and uses less electricity, making for a more efficient light bulb or LED lighting.

Reading about a glowing tungsten lattice made me think of a glowing net.

And that helped relieve the dark day.

After all, for KU’s sports fans, men’s basketball season is under way. And the No. 2-rated Jayhawks soon will be lighting up the nets.