NightSchool: Cave Life - Livestream

Peek into cave systems that only the most skilled researchers, cave divers, & advanced tech can reach. Learn about bats, blind shrimp, and the fascinating range of life found in caves across the southern United States and Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula.

• How do hundreds of thousands of bats exit a cave in a matter of minutes without resulting in an airborne traffic jam? To answer this question and others like it, Nickolay Hristov works with an interdisciplinary team of scientists, artists, designers, and technologists to peek in the darkness with lasers, 3D modeling, and thermal and high-speed cameras. He’ll show off some of the incredible images and videos that help him and other researchers reveal the fascinating biology of bats and the caves that they call home.
   
• Marine biologist Fernando Calderón Gutiérrez, PhD Student at Texas A&M University, talks about the biodiversity and conservation of the unique subterranean estuaries that he studies on the Yucatán Peninsula. These estuaries, accessible only via underwater caves, aren’t easy for any organism involved: To conduct research, scientists must learn to cave dive, and to survive in these ecosystems, species must adapt to a serious lack of light and food.

Ages 21+