Bring on the blinkenlights

Childhood exposure to lava lamps has left us fascinated by anything that glows, sparkles, changes colour or otherwise lights up our lives. Fortunately UK designers lead the world when it comes to creating funky lights.

• The iconoclastic designers at Suck UK have produced the Glow Brick (right), a light bulb encased in a clear solid block. It absorbs light during the day, then glows gently at night. No wires, no electricity.

• After 40 years of hippy trippy gloopy pink and orange lava, Mathmos is experimenting with LEDs. Its Aduki, Bubble and Tumbler lights charge like mobile phones for several hours of go-anywhere glow. Aduki and Tumbler give you multiple colours, but we can't go past the soft-touch Bubble, which turns on or off when you squeeze it.

• UK light artist Chris Levine has created the Laserpod, a portable light that uses three lasers to generate "the purest light known to man -- a single frequency of energy fundamental to our existence". Beyond having the most purple prose of any lighting product, it does multicoloured spangly light effects and runs off three AA batteries.

• Traser Glowrings are borosilicate glass vials filled with gaseous tritium. They aren't the brightest stars in the lighting universe, but they glow for up to ten years without batteries, recharging, service, maintenance or any other effort on your part.

A word of warning, though: Boing Boing is reporting a global shortage of darkness that's affecting our health and sanity. Better hide all your lights under a bushel, then. -ML