Word: underground
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...authorities are dubious. The banning of extremist groups will probably mean little in practical terms. Most of those who commit the crimes either belong to groups that barely deserve to be called extremist or are lone operators. Officials admit that a ban also forces the more organized groups underground, making it tougher to track them. Nonetheless, political scientist Gerd Mielke maintains that the ban "is a blow against right-wing extremists in making their activities illegal. Much more important is its function as symbolic politics, as drawing a line for the public." Not enough of that defining, of what...
...Plano, Texas. "It's been a truly eye- opening experience that has made us interpret some of the cores we bring up in a completely different manner." Because of the link between oil and caves, ARCO is starting to use remote-imaging technology to detect the presence of underground caverns. "My guess is that we will be able to find significant amounts of oil and gas this way," says Handford...
Researchers are also applying what they have learned from caves that, unlike Carlsbad, are still actively growing. Among those lessons are some alarming insights into the way industrial contaminants spread underground. In most parts of the U.S., the ground is solid and compact and water flows down through it at a rate of less than 30 m (100 ft.) a year. But about 20% of the U.S.'s fresh water flows through the myriad cavities and pores of limestone karst, often traveling 1 km (0.6 mile) overnight, taking unpredictable turns and sometimes bubbling up to the surface through a spring...
Fortunately, speleologists at Western Kentucky University were able to use their knowledge of how water flows through caves to trace the source of the fumes and put a stop to the contamination. They plan to map out more of the underground caves and passageways in order to better understand which areas are at highest risk. Communities built on karst in Tennessee, West Virginia, Florida and Missouri may someday follow suit...
Caves have led to new insights about evolution. The absence of light and scarcity of food limit the number of species that can survive underground. Most common are crickets, beetles and eyeless fish. "We see simple communities that may be made up of only four species," says Tom Poulson, professor of biology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "But that allows us to look in greater detail at what is going on, say, between predator / and prey." As a result, biologists can study subterranean ecosystems in their entirety -- a feat that often proves impossibly complex aboveground...