Jim Croce wanted to save time in a bottle. Would he have settled for a cave? .
Time is all around us. But what if there was a way where we could step away from time, even just a little bit?
And if there was, what would it feel like?
That was kind of the idea behind the Deep Time project, in which 15 people tried to learn about time by living as far outside of it as possible.
They were living in a cave in France, where they had food, water and amenities but none of the usual ways to measure time: no sun to track, no clocks and calendars to follow.
And some interesting things happened.
For one, they lost track of how much time was passing.
When they finally came out of the cave 40 days later, some participants thought they’d been in there for just 30 days, or less.
Also, they had little in the way of daily routines, because they didn’t exactly have days. Or weeks, for that matter.
So what they tended to do was to focus on right now, things that were something useful or enjoyable to do in the present.
There’s still a lot to understand about the experiences spent in Deep Time, but one thing’s for sure: attempting to live away from time sure shows how much time matters in our daily lives.
Here’s another story that’s worth your time: scientists in Brazil have discovered a pumpkin toadlet, a little bright orange amphibian we didn’t have on the books yet.
Interestingly, this one glows green when it’s under UV light.
We don’t know why yet, but seems like a useful feature if it decides to become an Instagram influencer.
15 People Lived 40 Days in a Sunless Cave Without Clocks to Study Time (Vice)
Biologists Discover New Species of Glowing Pumpkin Toadlet (Smithsonian)
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