Source

Sociologist Will Spend Three Years in Cave

by Agence France-Presse • Posted October 12, 2006 12:00 PM

ROME (AFP)—An Italian sociologist hopes to spend up to three years hunkered in a small, chilly underground cave in central Italy to better understand the body’s natural cycles, a newspaper has reported.

Maurizio Montalbini, 53, moved into his new grotto home Wednesday, said La Repubblica on Thursday.

He intends to pass more than 1,000 days drinking water from a small pipe, and eating food pills at meals. But he’s also brought a few treats: four kilogrammes (10 pounds) of honey, two kilogrammes (4.4 pounds) of nuts and 1.5 kilogrammes (3.3 pounds) of chocolate, according to La Repubblica.

His sojourn aims to better understand the body’s natural rhythms to determine better medical dosages and fight stress and insomnia.

“I’ve signed a letter authorizing that those who monitor me outside, my friends from the underground laboratory Underlab to let me spend three years in the grotto, no more,” Montalbini, who is also a professional cave explorer, told the newspaper.

It won’t be a cakewalk.

Montalbini’s new home—80 meters (262 feet) underground—is two meters (6.6 feet) wide, and 50 meters (164 feet) long and five meters (16.4 feet) meters high. The cave’s temperature fluctuates between 9 degrees C (48 F) 10 degrees C (50 degrees F).

The sociologist is no stranger to grotto life. He beat a world record for the feat in the early 1990s, after living just over a year in a cave.

“When I remained 366 days underground, I had the impression of only spending 219 days,” Montalbini said.

Still he knows when to call it quits.

“This is the last experiment I’m going to do, I’m getting too old,” Montalbini told the newspaper.