All this talk about other-than-underground caving reminds me of an
incident that occurred a few weeks ago. Will Harris, Bill Steele and
I took a group of four young women from the Metroplex to Austin to
introduce them to underground caving. BTW, many thanks to Julie
Jenkins and the TCMA for providing access to Whirlpool and Maple Run
Caves for our adventure. On the trip down to Austin on Saturday
morning, the women had many questions about caving and cavers and we
managed to spend the entire 3.5 hours regaling them with stories and
assuring them that ceiling collapse was not a likely danger in most
caves, and certainly not in the ones they would be visiting.
On Sunday morning, after our visit to Maple Run, we loaded up the
truck and headed north. This time the conversation waned, so I
plugged my iPod into the sound system and played a few episodes of
NPR's "Science Friday" podcast (www.sciencefriday.com). The first
episode featured astronomers who had discovered a "hole in the
universe"--a region nearly a billion light-years across that is empty
(no stars, no dust, no gas, no dark matter, nothing). That was kind
of neat, thinking about exploring a giant hole in the universe,
rather than a giant hole in the ground. The second episode featured a
panel of guests who talked about on-line virtual worlds such as
Second Life and World of Warcraft (see http://www.sciencefriday.com/
pages/2007/Aug/hour2_083107.html for this particular podcast). This
sparked a brief discussion in the truck, as one of the young women
has been an active participant in Second Life for many years. One of
the guests in the podcast pointed out that many handicapped people
find it therapeutic to participate in these on-line virtual reality
worlds, as they are able to design avatars that aren't limited in
their physical abilities.
So...does anyone out there know if there's a lot of caving going on
in any of these on-line virtual reality worlds? Imagine the
possibilities! Your avatar could look like Floyd Collins, or the
Geico caveman, or just a really buff version of yourself. Think of
the things you could discover while caving! Chupacabras, dragons,
pirate booty, lost cities, wormholes to Mars, the connection between
Carlsbad and Mammoth, the list goes on...
Diana
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Diana R. Tomchick
Associate Professor
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Department of Biochemistry
5323 Harry Hines Blvd.
Rm. ND10.214B
Dallas, TX 75390-8816, U.S.A.
Email: diana.tomch...@utsouthwestern.edu
214-645-6383 (phone)
214-645-6353 (fax)
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