Teacher ShelleTokyo Train Stations Use Lights to Stem Suicides
 By SHINO YUASA (AP) As of November, East Japan Railway Co. has put blue light-emitting diode, or LED, lights in all 29 stations on Tokyo's central train loop, the Yamanote Line, used by 8 million passengers each day. There's no scientific proof that the lights actually reduce suicides, and some experts are skeptical it will have any effect. But others say blue does have a calming effect on people. "We associate the color with the sky and the sea," Mizuki Takahashi, a therapist at the Japan Institute of Color Psychology, a private research center that was not involved in the lighting project. "It has a calming effect on agitated people, or people obsessed with one particular thing, which in this case is committing suicide." Suicide rates in Japan have risen this year amid economic woes, and could surpass the record 34,427 deaths in 2003. East Japan Railway has spent about 15 million yen, or $165,000, for the special lights at all the Yamanote stations. source: The Associated Press |