- My name's Maraci Yoka.
- Well welcome.
- Okay, my question is, how is the cave,
still in good condition even though,
it has been years since it has been found?
- Good question!
Someone nailing these back to the ceiling,
that what your asking?
(laughter)
Okay, got it, let's hear it.
- So caves have stewards, right?
We are all stewards of caves,
and we all hope to protect caves,
through the different things that we do.
In the forest service, in the national park service,
and then here at Luray, the owners of Luray Caverns,
since it's a privately owned cave,
all take precautions and do things,
to make sure that what we're doing on the surface,
doesn't impact the cave below.
And they also have tour guides which you may have seen,
or forest service, or national park service employees,
that talk to the visitors and tell them,
not to touch formations, and not to take them with them,
so that other people can enjoy them,
and scientists can study them in the future.
- [Visitor] Thank you.
- Great question, thank you.
- And now you, that's sweet, you're all on the front row,
so convenient.
- So my question is, what impact do caves have,
on our daily lives?
- I'm turning that way, thank you.
What's your name?
- Lydia.
- Thanks Lydia.
- So we're connected to caves in our daily lives,
in lots of different ways.
For one, they capture our imagination, right?
Pretty cool, huh?
And then also scientists who study caves,
learn things about medicine, like antibiotics,
how microbes interact with the environment,
and how you can utilize them in things like medicines,
which is a good question for some of our scientists,
answering questions on-line and the microbiologist with us.
And then also through water, water comes from cave systems,
in some places, so, we interact with the water,
that comes out of cave systems.
- [Man Guide] Very cool!
- [Female Guide] And then people that we talked about,
as Amtrat said, people are into,
all kinds of different things,
some of us love recreating in caves,
and crawling though small spaces.
- You can do it every day,
if you join this team of scientists one day, hint, hint.
(laughter)