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The life of Michel Siffre
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Michel Siffre is a specialist in chronobiology, the study of the human internal clock.
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- In 1962, he spent two months in the caves of Scarrasson, in the southern Alps. After 61 days on an underground glacier with no time reference, he resurfaced on September 17th believing the date was August 20th.
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In 1972, the speleologist supervised other similar experiments before going down again into the Midnight Cave where he remained for 205 days, in collaboration with the Lyndon Johnson Space Center of Houston (NASA).
"My brain would make automatic adjustements because it had memorised the previous experiment and yet I was still 2 months out." "We have made a real contribution to chronobiology.But I didn't only study human rhythms out of time, I also analysed sleep, using electro-encephalographic studies."
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On November 30th 1999, Michel Siffre, by then aged 60 and a veteran of French scientific speleology, settled in an out of time context in the Grotte de Clamouse. This was how he stumbled into the 21st century. Deep in the bowels of the Grotte de Clamouse, the sixty-year-old pursued his experiments and went through a full range of tests, with the help of his own experience and the latest technologies available. All the indicators concerning his health were monitored live from the surface using a Thomson-designed computer system (deprived of all time markers). Michel Siffre studied the influence of ageing on the way the human body reacts when there is no time bearing. He emerged from the cave on 14th February 2000. The aim of this experiment was to study the influence of ageing on the alterations of circadian rhythms (the alternation between waking and sleep).
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| 3rd January 1939 |
Michel Siffre was born in Nice
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| 1949 |
First exploration of a cavern
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| 1956 |
Met Jacques Bourcart, a physical geography professor at the Paris University of Science and a member of the Institute. Began top-level scientific studies, especially in stratigraphical geology and marine sedimentology.
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| 1956-1963 |
Contibuted many papers and publications to the French Geological Society, the speleological review of the CNRS and the Academy of Science.
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| 1960 |
Obtained a first for his diploma of higher education in geology at the Sorbonne. Also one of the first prizewinners of the vocation foundation created by Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet.
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| 16th July to 17th September 1962 |
First out of time experiment in the underground glacier of Scarasson (southern Alps), 110 metres below ground. Proved the difference between the spontaneous duration of the waking-sleep cycle (24 hours 30 minutes) and the circadian cycle (24 hours).
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| 14th February to 5th September 1972 |
Experiment of 205 days in the Midnight Cave (Texas) with the Lyndon Johnson Space Center in Houston (NASA) and the food used for the Apollo 16 mission during the quarantine period.
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| 1974-1980 |
Wrote books and conferences papers. Went on 6 expeditions to the Peten tropical karst jungles (Guatemala). Discovered sculpted works on stalagmites at least 5000 years old, so earlier than the Maya and Olmec civilisations.
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| 1988 |
Veronique le Guen experiment in the Aveyron.
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