Caves

In February Mad Cave Studios will release Tales from Nottingham #1, the debut issue of a five-issue anthology series featuring stories from the winners of Mad Cave’s 2021 Talent Search. The first issue of the series features work from the creative team of writer David Hazan, artist Shane Connery Volk, colorist Luca Romano, and letterer Justin Birch. Today The Beat is pleased to present an exclusive first look at pages from five of the series’ six stories, all of which are set in the world of Hazan and Connery Volk’s…

Earlier this week, Spotify ran to the press to complain that Apple had rejected the latest version of its iOS app for skirting in-app purchase rules as it worked on adding audiobooks as a new feature. As we all expected, Spotify has now given in to Apple’s demands, but it couldn’t resist taking one more jab along the way… Spotify today rolled out an update to its iOS app that does indeed add updated support for audiobooks. Unsurprisingly, Spotify was not able to break the App Store guidelines and instead is…

Crude oil pipes at the Bryan Mound Strategic Petroleum Reserve site near Freeport, Texas.Photo: Department of Energy (AP)On Wednesday, the Biden administration announced that it would pull an additional 15 million barrels of oil out of the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to help juice up oil supplies and keep gas prices low in the face of the global energy crisis.The 15 million barrels, which will be delivered in December, arethe final part of an extended release that has been going on since May. After this…

South Australia's Naracoorte Caves is one of the world's best fossil sites, containing a record spanning more than half a million years.Among the remains preserved in layers of sand are the bones of many iconic Australian megafauna species that became extinct between 48,000 and 37,000 years ago.The reasons for the demise of these megafauna species are intensely debated. But the older the fossils we can find, the better we can understand the species' evolution and extinction.To date, determining the precise age of the…

Charlotte Honiat and Tanguy Racine from the Department of Geology pack ice samples in the Tyrolean Guffert Eisschacht for further analysis in the laboratory. Credit: University of Innsbruck Analyzing eight ice caves in four Austrian federal states, a team of geologists from the University of Innsbruck has comprehensively documented the loss and gain of ice in Alpine ice caves over the last 2,000 years for the first time. The…

2010 shmup gets set for fresh return City Connection, the purveyor of some of history’s finest shmups, has announced that Cave classic Akai Katana Shin is getting a re-release on some modern platforms later this year. A digital release will hit PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch in Japan on December 15, with a physical edition to follow on PS4 and Switch only. Originally released in 2010, Akai Katana is a horizontally scrolling shmup that features dynamic visuals, melodramatic lore, and a pulse-pounding soundtrack that…

University of South Florida geologist Bogdan Onac stands next to preindustrial overgrowths in the Cala Varques cave in Mallorca, Spain. Credit: University of South FloridaA geology professor at the University of South Florida has uncovered the influence of the industrial boom on global warming.The early 1900s were a thrilling moment for people all around the globe, with tremendous breakthroughs in the steel, electric, and car sectors. Industrial developments also represent a tipping point in our climate. The sea level has…

Cave explorers have traversed what's now the deepest known cave in Australia.On Saturday, a group of explorers discovered a 401-meter-deep cave, which they named Delta Variant, in Tasmania's Niggly-Growling Swallet cave system within the Junee-Florentine karst area.  Its depth just beat out its predecessor, the Niggly Cave, by about 4 meters.With a descent that lasted 14 hours and took many months to prepare for, Delta Variant is causing a stir among explorer communities.But it holds a different kind of fascination for…

The temperature on the Moon can vary from boiling to freezing depending on whether it's night or day, but scientists think there might well be sheltered pits and caves where the temperature is quite reasonable – no matter what time it is.  In such spots, the temperature hovers around 17 degrees Celsius (63 degrees Fahrenheit), according to new calculations. They could be the perfect locations for establishing base camps to explore the rest of the lunar surface.They might also offer some protection against small…

The Moon isn’t the most hospitable place, but that’s not stopping NASA from sending humans back there soon. Thankfully, an orbiter has now found a region of the Moon with year-round jeans-and-jacket weather – underground caves.The lunar surface isn’t exactly a prime vacation spot. It’s a pockmarked desert drier than anywhere on Earth, coated in clingy dust that cuts like fiberglass, and exposed to extreme radiation, micrometeorite showers, and wild temperature swings between 127 °C (260 °F) during the day and -173 °C…