WEBVTT

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Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Marina
Sante and I'm Patrick Woodward. Spotlight uses

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a special English method of broadcasting.
It is easier for people to understand no

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matter where in the world they live. A group of people crowd around a

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large hole in a rock. A
rope hangs down into the hole. Soon

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the rope moves. A man comes
out of the hole, wearing a hard

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hat and climbing equipment. The man
in the hard hat has his arm around

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another man. The first man moves
very weakly and he is only just able

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to climb. He closes his eyes
as he enters into the light. It

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is too bright for him. He
has not seen the sun for six months.

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This man's name is Michel Siffe.
He is a French geologist. A

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geologist is a person who studies the
earth. But today Sife is not studying

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the earth. Instead, he is
studying how people experience time. Sife locked

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himself away under the ground for half
a year. He did not have clocks,

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he did not have the sun to
tell him when to sleep. He

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slept as long as he needed,
and he stayed awake as long as he

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wanted. The experiment was very bad
for him, It troubled him a lot,

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but while living underground, Michele Siffe
discovered something very important, the internal

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clock. Today's spotlight is on Michell
Sife and the internal clock. Sief did

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not train to study how people experienced
time. Instead, Sieff went to school

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to be a geologist. As a
young man, he explored underground and studied

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different kinds of rocks but wonder In
nineteen sixty two, seef explored a cave

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that would change his life. He
had discovered an underground glacier. The glacier

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was in the French Alps. He
was supposed to lead a trip to the

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mountains to study the glacier. The
trip was to take fifteen days, but

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Siefe did not believe that this was
enough time. He decided that he would

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go for two months instead, and
as an experiment, he would go without

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bringing a clock. He would live
in the cave alone. His goal was

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to have no connection to time passing
in the outside world. He wanted to

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see what his body would do.
Joshua Foeher is a writer. He spoke

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to Michelle sief about his experiment.
Seif said, I invented a simple scientific

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method. I put a team at
the opening of the cave. I decided

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I would call them when I got
up, when I ate, and just

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before I went to sleep. My
team did not have the right to or

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me. I would have no idea
what time it was. The cave was

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not a great place to live,
living near a glacier. See If was

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often wet. His body temperature would
get very low. It would go as

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low as thirty four degrees celsius.
He also did not have much to do.

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He studied the glacier, He read
his books and wrote in his journal,

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but there was no one to talk
to. He lived by himself and

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lost all sense of time. See
If told Joshua Foreua, there were two

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tests I did every time I called
the surface. First, I checked my

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heart beat. Second, there was
a mental test. I had to count

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from one to one hundred twenty.
I counted at a rate of one number

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each second. With that test,
we made a great discovery. It took

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me five minutes to count to one
hundred twenty. In other words, I

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experienced five real minutes as if they
were only two minutes. When two months

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had passed, Siefe's team called him. They told him it was time to

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leave. Seefe was very confused.
He was supposed to leave on the fourteenth

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of September, but he believed that
it was only the twentieth of August.

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He had lost twenty five days.
But Sefe also discovered something even more amazing.

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He discovered that each of us has
an internal clock. This clock tells

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our bodies when to sleep and get
up. Usually, we sleep and get

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up because of light from the sun, we live in a twenty four hour

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sleep cycle. Sefe also lived in
a cycle, but his sleep cycle was

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twenty four and one half hours long. This proved that the sun was not

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the only thing organizing sleep. Instead, humans have a natural cycle without the

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sun. We sleep and get up
when our bodies tell us to. Siff

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knew that what he had discovered was
very important, so he devoted his life

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to studying this eternal body clock.
In fact, he is considered the father

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of the new field of study called
chron biology. Chron Biology studies how these

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internal cycles of time affect both mind
and body. He performed many other experiments.

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In some he sent other people into
caves. They also stayed for months.

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These people had different sleep cycles than
Sief did. Instead, they developed

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forty eight hour cycles. They would
stay awake for thirty six hours, then

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they would sleep for twelve This meant
that each person's sleep cycle was different,

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and most are longer than twenty four
hours. These experiments were very important at

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the time. Countries had just begun
to send people into space, but no

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one knew how going to space would
change people. They did not know how

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it would affect sleep. Being alone
in a cave is a little like being

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alone in space, so people going
to space could prepare better for the effects

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of traveling in space on their bodies. Then, in nineteen seventy two,

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Sieff decided to do another experiment on
himself. He would go down into a

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cave again. He was older and
he wanted to study how this changed the

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results, but he also wanted to
stay underground longer. He would live in

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the cave for six months. Thief's
six months underground affected him very differently than

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before. Two months underground did not
change him much, but the six months

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caused him great mental disturbance. He
began to fear the fungus that grew on

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the cave walls. He feared he
would catch diseases from the cave dust,

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and he felt extremely sad. Once
he was so lonely that he tried to

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befriend a mouse. He tried to
catch the mouse so he would have something

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living to talk to, but he
was not able to He killed the mouse

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by accident. This made him so
sad he thought about taking his own life,

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but he continued with his experiments.
He did not give in to his

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sadness. By the end, he
could only say a few words and it

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was very difficult to think. Sef
had everything he needed to survive, but

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without others, his mind stopped working
well. Sief's experience damaged his mind,

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but this experiment was a success.
His discoveries helped inform scientists how sleep works,

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and he helped confirm the importance of
physical touch. Being touched by other

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people is not just nice, It
is important to survive. People can survive

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without other people for a long time, but it can be dangerous to their

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health. After his six months stay, Sief stopped his experiments for eight years.

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He moved away from his home in
France and divorced his wife. His

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time in the cave changed him.
He needed time to recover. Soon though,

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Sief began experimenting again, and today
he is one of the most well

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known people who study time. His
experiments are still the only ones of their

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kind. Franz Halberg is a professor
at the University of Wisconsin. He also

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studies how we experience time. In
nineteen eighty eight, he spoke to the

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Los Angeles Times about Sife. He
said, some people think he's a bad

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boy, but Sief does what no
one else will do. He has by

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far the longest records of people being
alone. Others who have studied similar things

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have done it for weeks. He
has done it for months. Would you

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live by yourself for two months?
What about six months? Why? Or

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why not? You can leave a
comment on our website or email us at

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Radio at Radio English dot net.
You can also comment on Facebook at Facebook

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dot com slash Spotlight Radio. You
can also get our programs delivered directly to

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your Android or Apple device through our
free officials Spotslight English app. The writer

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and producer of this program was Dan
Christman. The voices you heard were from

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the United Kingdom. All quotes were
adapted for this program and voice by Spotlight.

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You can listen to this program again
and read it on the internet at

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www dot Radio English dot net.
This program is called Living Without Time,

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Michelle Siefe and the internal clock.
We hope you can join us again for

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the next Spotslight program. Goodbye du