Volunteers experience 40 days of isolation in a cave

Watch the video Can you see yourself taking part in an experiment where you'd live in a dark cave for 40 days with 14 strangers and no contact with the outside world? What would you miss the most? What might be positive about the experience? Read the text Could you survive for a few days without your smartphone or without being connected to the Internet? How about living in a cave with no mod cons for 40 days? Fifteen people did just that. They took part in a project called Deep Time to see how they would react to and cope with being totally disconnected from the modern world. Scientists from the Human Adaption Institute lead the $1.9-million project. They wanted to understand how people would adapt to drastic changes in living conditions. They put the volunteers in a cave for nearly six weeks. There was no sunlight and the cave dwellers had no contact with the outside world. They had to rely on their body clock to know when to wake up, go to sleep and eat.Most of the volunteers said they enjoyed the experience of total isolation. Two-thirds expressed a desire to remain underground a while longer in order to finish projects they had started. Deep Time's director Christian Clot said the experience would, "test humans' ability to adapt to the loss of their frame of reference for time and space". He said: "Our future as humans on this planet will evolve. We must learn to better understand how our brains are capable of finding new solutions, whatever the situation." One striking observation is that participants lost their sense of time. Mr Clot said: "In our heads, we had walked into the cave 30 days ago". One team member estimated the time underground to be 23 days.From Original Sources VOCABULARY MATCHING mod cons The machines and devices of a well-equipped modern house that create an easier way of life. cope Deal effectively with something difficult. dweller A person or animal thatlives in or at a specified place desire A strong feeling of wanting to have something or wishing for something to happen striking Attracting attention by reason of being unusual, extreme, or prominent. observation The action or process of looking at something or someone carefully or in order to gain information. estimated Roughly calculated or judged the value, number, quantity, or extent of.