Keeping the lights (brightly) on

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Suzanna Long (far right) with student researchers (l-r) Andrew Clum, Sean Schmidt and Snehal Digraskar. Photos by B.A. Rupert

As Neil Young once said, it’s better to burn out than to fade away. But as many of the nation’s transportation departments have discovered, the light-emitting diodes or LEDs found in most traffic lights don’t burn out — they just lose brightness over time.

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