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Maurizio Montalbini, We Salute You

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In which we examine the life, the research, and the latest project of Italian scientist Maurizio Montalbini: he’s putting himself into a cave for three years.  We find out why, we get the juicy details....and oh yeah, we give him mad props.

First of all --- why is this man staying in a cave for three years?

I had no idea, but when I mentioned this to Bling Finger, he knew immediately: “To study circadian rhythms?”, he asked me, about .04 seconds after I read him the headline.  The headline in question being ”SOCIOLOGIST WILL SPEND THREE YEARS IN CAVE.”

Bling Finger, as always, was right.  Montalbini’s research has centered around biochronology, understanding the rhythms, patterns and cycles of the human organism.  Digging around for his work yielded one of the most amazing papers I’ve stumbled across since I found Chris King --- this gem right here:

Cross-spectrally coherent ~10.5- and 21-year biological and physical cycles, magnetic storms and
myocardial infarctions

Basically, that means that our bodies are tuned to clearly defined cycles of around 10.5 years and 21 years.  There are also identical cycles in magnetic storms, and a “myocardial infarction” is known to us normal humans as heart attacks.

The paper is intended for a professional/academic audience, but that’s a good workout for vocabulary and focus.  (Considering we are always being presented with information we cannot process immediately, or do not have the frame of reference to understand, it’s important to maintain focus when reality derails your train of thought.) Within the dense language is one heck of a gem, the following diagram:


click to enlarge yo

Second of all --- is he going to crack up?

The only honest answer is, we can’t know until it happens.  However, Montalbini did not randomly decide to do this (like when Barbara Bush got that “WHITE POWER” tattoo, for instance).  Montalbini is a grizzled veteran of cave exploration, and he’s got experience with long vacations underground: in fact, he holds the world record, 366 days of being really cold in total darkness.  After the experience, he spoke one of the most fascinating sentences I’ve read in months: “When I remained 366 days underground, I had the impression of only spending 219 days.”

In barely related but effing fascinating news, the existing world record for fasting is 49 effing days. (link here)

Montalbini will be living a rugged life down there.  He will be living off the same food pills that astronauts use, and he’s bringing down a minimal amount of honey, chocolate and nuts.  He will be provided water continuously through a long tube.  A very long tube, since his cave is 246 feet down. Being underground, of course, the temperature varies wildly: in a single day, it will fluctuate from 48 to 50 degrees farenheit. 

What’s coolest about caves?  On the one hand, you have the excellent horror film “The Descent”, which has done for caving what “The Blair Witch Project” did for camping....I may not like Hollywood much, but they sure do keep the city kids away, and I’m thankful for that.  On the other hand, that means you have the cave to yourself.  Speleology is wide-open, total-unknown, frontier science stuff.  Take a look at the wikipedia page for it, which is almost entirely empty headings.  This is one of those open cracks in reality where history can be written by anyone dedicated enough to write it --- which is appropriate.

Fun Word

Karst.  Say it out loud right now.  Now say it real fast, three or four times.  Now go outside.

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