Gammarus minus, a freshwater amphipod living in the cave and surface streams in the eastern USA, is an excellent model for investigating evolutionary adaptation to the subterranean environment. RNA-Seq was conducted on one pair of morphologically distinct sister populations inhabiting surface and cave habitats to identify genes that were differentially expressed in the two populations, as well ...

Karstand cave-systems are complex, 3-dimensional phenomena. Mapping and visualizing them represents a challenge to cartographers, morphologists and computer-graphics-specialists. Surveying and sketching of cave-maps as well as the construction of 3D-cave-models (incl. geology) are important parts of cave exploration and research. Besides supporting the efforts of speleologists, cave maps and 3D...

The enjoyment and survey of archaeological caves, hardly accessible by human beings, can be executed with the aid of a mobile vehicle. In this context, a fundamental task for the autonomous robot navigation is the selfpositioning with respect to a predefined target. The need of a non invasive intervention in the cave requires the use of natural landmarks as reference points. In this context, we...

Since the excavations at Franchthi Cave in 1960s and 1970s, possibility of finding a submerged Neolithic site Bay Kiladha has been discussed. Initial research, based on marine geophysical survey core sampling, brought contrasted results. Starting 2012, new parts were investigated, using different techniques improved methods, such as geological-geophysical survey, further sampling (including art...

Conventional wisdom among cave divers is that submerged caves in aquifers, such as in Florida or the Yucatan, are unstable due to their ever-growing size from limestone dissolution in water. Cave divers occasionally noted partial cave collapses occurring while they were in the cave, attributing this to their unintentional (and frowned upon) physical contact with the cave walls or the aforementi...

This paper introduces a Natural User Interface (NUI) that enables interaction in a Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE). The tracking of the head and hand in a CAVE usually takes place with the help of magnetic tracking systems or marker-based optical tracking systems. In both cases the user has to wear a number of instruments. In contrast, the CAVE at the HTW Berlin uses two depth detecti...

Yarimburgaz is a double cave with slightly offset upper and lower entrance chambers, connected laterally inside the cave. Below Byzantine and modern debris, the upper cave encloses Chalcolithic to Upper Paleolithic occupations above a beach sand attributed to the Last Interglacial. Below the beach sand, strongly modified sediments contain sparse Lower Paleolithic artifacts. The lower cave prese...

Abstract The Te’omim Cave is a large karst cave located in the Jerusalem Hills. Since 2009, has been explored by our team as joint project of Martin (Szusz) Department Land Israel Studies and Archaeology at Bar-Ilan University Research Center Hebrew Jerusalem. Over 120 intact oil lamps were collected 2010–2016 survey seasons from all sections cave; most them dated to second fourth centuries CE....