© Renata Brito (AP)
Members of the French team celebrating the end of their 40-day stay in an underground cave.
Members of the French team celebrating the end of their 40-day stay in an underground cave.
At 10:30 a.m. local time on Saturday April 24, 15 people emerged from Lombrives cave in Ussat les Bains, France, following 40 days of complete isolation from the outside world. Many of them had smiles on their faces, which... well, full credit to them. Had it been me, I can guarantee you that I would not be smiling, as the conditions down there were far from ideal.
The environment was most certainly rough, with the temperature fixed at 50 degrees F (10 degrees C) and the relative humidity pinned at an oppressive 100%. Not a single ray of sunlight leaks into this cave, requiring the team to depend exclusively on artificial lighting. And with no way to communicate with the outside world, team members lost touch with their friends, families, and the daily news cycle.
Importantly, they also lost track of time, as no clocks of any sort were allowed in the cave. For this was the point of the "Deep Time" project, organized by the Human Adaptation Institute, which is seeking to understand how humans adapt and work together to recreate "synchronization outside the usual indicators," as the group explains at its website.
When asked how long they had stayed in the cave, the team collectively figured it was around 30 days (though, as The Guardian reports, one person estimated the total duration at 23 days!). That the team had somehow lost track of 10 whole days (or more) is somewhat astounding and testament to our dependence on clocks or the day-night cycle to keep track of time. Our internal clocks, it would appear, really, really suck, and are subject to considerable drift — even across the relatively short time span of 40 days.
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