Chordomas are locally aggressive malignant tumors due to their recurrence potential, originating from the embryonic notochord remnants. Chordomas can originate anywhere on the axial skeleton. They are extradural and are spread by bone destruction. Chordomas are locally aggressive tumors which invade the dura mater, and may also present with secondary intradural growth. The Meckel's cave locatio...

We describe a new cave-dwelling species, Cyrtodactylus sanook sp. nov., from Tham Sanook, Chumphon Province, southern Thailand, characterized by a maximum SVL of 79.5 mm; 18-20 longitudinal rows of dorsal tubercles at midbody; a continuous series of enlarged femoral and precloacal scales, no femoral pores, three or four precloacal pores in males (no pores in females), no precloacal groove nor d...

Blombos Cave is an important site on the Southern Cape of South Africa for supporting " modern behavior " of the Middle Stone Age people. Many contend that the MSA people were not fully modern in behavior because the artifact remains do not support the working of organic material, fishing, and other advanced behavior. They also project that these behaviors may not have originated in Africa. How...

The Kirkdale Cave palaeofauna represents the original and classic 'warm', interglacial mammalian cave deposit in Britain. Although long considered to be ' Ipswichian' in age, no previous attempts to obtain radiometric dates have been recorded. Here we report a uranium-series disequilibrium date of 121,000 ± 4000 yr BP on a flowstone capping that overlay the original bone bed. The precision of t...

Border Cave exhibits a detailed sequence of MSA strata, with probable Homo sapiens sapiens remains within these layers, arguing for an early appearance of modern humans in South Africa. Supporters of an early appearance place hominids BC1, 2, and 3 at ~115 kyr by correlation to C 14 dated soils (Butzer et al, 1978), while skeptics, using ERS methods, believe these individuals are younger than 9...

This study investigated the social behaviors of blind cave-adapted crayfish and compared them to the behaviors of sighted crayfish. Because blind cave crayfish display phototactic behavior, presumably mediated by the caudal photoreceptors in the sixth abdominal ganglion, we tested whether light, a disturbance in the crayfish’s normal cave environment, altered their normal social behaviors. Obse...

Waters from an extensive sulfide-rich aquifer emerge in the Frasassi cave system, where they mix with oxygen-rich percolating water and cave air over a large surface area. The actively forming cave complex hosts a microbial community, including conspicuous white biofilms coating surfaces in cave streams, that is isolated from surface sources of C and N. Two distinct biofilm morphologies were ob...