Slashdot Mirror
Science and Education in Biodomes
Guinnessy writes: "Many of you will remember the excitement around biosphere 2, a project to enclose 8 people in a sealed environment to see if they could survive a year on just the resources produced inside the dome. It failed (although they did discover some interesting data from it). Now, in the UK, a bunch of scientists, engineers and environments have created the Eden Project, a similar scheme (e.g. closed environments mimicking various climate conditions around the world) to biosphere 2 except the general public can walk through the domes to learn about the importance of plant life. Wired News magazine has an excellent article explaining some of the technology used in its construction (it amazed me how far they have come compared to the biosphere 2 design) and how it is educating the public." Hey, according to Mission to Mars all you need is some flapping canvas to keep your habitat secure.
Somehow, it makes me think of Big Brother, the reality TV show.
-
Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF, find / -name '*base*' |xargs chown -R us && mv zig greatjustice
okay, now the rest of you can move on with your business ;-)
1. Pick a location.
2. Build a small enclosure around yourself.
3. Define yourself to be on the outside.
Weeks of coding saves hours of planning.
It would be nice, if edenproject could bring summer-like environment for whole year. Winters are so cold here, in Scandinavia.
I think this is a brilliant thing to be doing. If you read the article there have already been a bunch of technical spinoffs from this project (soil technology, building big light things etc) that will make a big difference in the 'real world'.
And there's loads of plants in it! Speaking as a keen gardener ( how many of us on Slashdot, I wonder?) I can't wait to wander around it and go 'wow!'
This is a great example of what really rich people can get done if they have some style. Kudos to Tim Smits.
From the site
In a giant crater in Cornwall, England we bring the stories of our world to life. In the huge covered conservatories, or Biomes as we call them, you can visit the majestic rainforests, the Mediterranean, South Africa and California and in the Outdoor Landscape discover more about the plants and places that share our Cornish climate.
I wonder what's in store for Biomes 2? I have an idea, since each city has a distinctive personality maybe we can adapt this for an urban enviroment.
Welcome to the London Biomes where we recreate the wonders of South Chigago. I know I've said this before outside, however I find it nessasary to remind everyone again to please insure that all jewlery and any belongings of value are hidden safely out of siight thoughout the tour. Umm hello sir, company rules clearly state no handouts to the winos. Alright everyone if you could look to your left someone wrote 'Welcme to Crakvile' on the side of that building in orange spraypaint. On that streetcorner to your right we find two middle-aged prostitutes who seem.....
>
It's totally breathtaking. It's just the most awesome theme park I've ever been to. The story does exaggerate slightly, it makes it seem like they are working ecosystems, but in fact they are just big greenhouses. Really big greenhouses, wrapped in the world's largest sheets of bubble-wrap. Hands off, no popping it!
One of the most impressive things about the Eden Project is the simple proximity of such diverse environments to one another - you can walk from a sub-tropical jungle to a european woodland; the similarities and differences between the environments are highlighted, though the flora/fauna imbalance is noticeable.
I think the only downside on the eden project is its location - Cornwall. You're looking at a good 3-4 hours from London to get there. That said, if you're in London, you can always make a weekend of it, see the Eden project one day, say Dartmoor the other.
One of the very cool things about it was that its built in an old mine. They started off with this slightly polluted hole in the ground, created their own soil on site from the mineing slag. Now if only we could be doing similar regenerative projects for all our mine sites...
This post will enter the public domain 70 years after my death, unless Disney buys another extension.
They made a good try at it, and if they ever activate this eden project it would be nice to see if their's works. But biosphere was doomed from the start and many many scientists were saying so from the beginning. They were lacking a correct sized human waste processing system, the amount of fauna was way too low, and trying to create ALL ecosuystems was plain stupid. Pick a easy to care for system and use that. using all high growth rate plants and high nutn plants is the best route plus you need to take account for the fact that plants will consume Oxygen in the night phase.
Even when Biosphere was being built it didnt seem that they were even trying to build it right and that it was more of a publicity stunt instead of a real research project.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
What those Brit's won't do to escape the cold clammy European weather!
Newt-dog
My Doctor prescribed daily nasal saline irrigation, hehe
Does that mean the environment was closed after an initial air-supply in order to let its contents re-generate its required oxygen itself ?
If this were the case this would be quite exciting as by just carrying this "life-bubble" on other world we could settle there with the minimum needed.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Perhaps more interesting, it seems the experimental parameters are somewhat different in the case of Eden. I figure they must already be using external air to support all of the visitors. Bioshere attempted to pull it off with an initial air supply which was hoped to be rinsed by the plants. If I recall, they had to open a crack in the window after everyone started getting very sleepy from the CO2.
"We've gone back to basics with the educational. We've avoided multimedia for now. It's a strange sort of thing ... people talk about interactive learning, but it's actually very passive," says Kendle.
I like this man already. There has always been so much hype about using computer based multimedia in education and museums, and most of it is rubbish. People just stand there looking at computer screens.
Yes, you might be able to get lots of information but it gets pretty boring very quickly. There is nothing like the hands on displays at places like the science museum in london. Even just moving between displays is more interesting than staring at yet another screen.
Another good example of an educational museum is the Norskbremusset (Norwegen Glacier Museum) at Fjaerland Norway. Lots of hands on stuff. If you ever go to that part of Norway it is worth a look.
Paul
Paul Leader
However, the comparison with biosphere 2 is rather strange as the two projects are very different. The Eden Project is basically a big green house. It has never been sealed and has never had that intention. It has value as an educational tool and there are some science studies going on but this is minor. Beyond its construction (which is bleeding edge), I found the biosphere 2 project far more interesting.
With the biosphere 2 project, the entire environment had be controlled. As they found, this is very difficult to achieve and needs to be sorted before any attempts for Moon or Mars bases can start. It should be interesting to see what the next attempt at a sealed environment achieves.
A few links from the BBC and from Google for the Eden Project.
wot no sig
I notice the banner of this site says "News for Nerds". The Eden project has been around for a couple of years and is actually a very successful tourist attraction in the UK.
Just because it's the first time *you* heard about it doesn't make it news.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
Ahh, the Eden project is about 1 mile from where I grew up in Cornwall, and where my parents still live. It is an awesome project for the millennium and it was great to see it being built. Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to go back there since it was completed.
One great thing about the project, is the interest and tourism that it's bringing to the local area - Cornwall has always been a beautiful place for people to visit, but now there's another reason to go as well.
This is an excellent use of one of the open-cast pits left over from the china clay mines that are scattered around that region of Cornwall, taking what was an eyesore and turning it into a thing of beauty. The Eden project is everything the Dome should have been in London.
If ever you're in the area, make a special effort to go and visit the project - it's really something special that you can't see anywhere else - not really anything like the Biosphere2 project - they're entirely different things, with entirely different objectives, on entirely different continents!
-- Pete.
Monochrome - Probably the UK's largest internet BBS
As for the biospheres themselves, one is a Tropical biome, and the other was Mediteranien (I think that's what they called it); the Tropical one is the big dome on the left, and the Med is the smaller one on the right. Of the two, the tropical one is better (as of now). It takes about half an hour to walk through the thing, and (especially the higher up you go in the dome) it gets bloody hot and humid in there. I went on a September day where I was wearing pants and a fleece outside, and within about ten minutes of beingin the Tropical dome I had ditched the fleece and rolled my pants into shorts. Its got all sorts of funky plants in there (including baby pineapples growing, bananas, and these odd frying-pan water lillies), a big waterfall that runs into a stream, to both add make it look pretty and keep the humidity up. What was really nice was that they didn't chintz the place up like many museums do - there were a few things like that, but for the most part they let the plants speak for themselves, and the small signs explain them - you can see a manilla plant that the paper for manila envelopes comes from.
The Med biome, on the other hand, kinda sucks. It's not really hot enoungh in there, and as Med climate plants don't grow as fast as Tropical ones, it seems a bit sparse in places - but they do a very nice job of decorating that half of the place.
The thing that needs to be remembered about the Eden Project is that the thing is really new. It's been open for about eight-to-ten months, and needs more time to grow. All the trees planted outside arn't ready, and the biomes need more time to grow and flourish. And they need to get anew supplier of Ice Cream in the Cafe. Having said that, Eden was a very pleasant weekend out. The train was like four hours or so from London, so you could do it in a day if you're hardcore. I personally went down for the weekend, doing Eden on one day and the Lost Gardens of Heligan (another gardening project) the other day. The place is cool now, and will be amazing in a few years. And it looks bloody cool when you arrive by car, coming around the corner and you just see these domes down there - and you just know it's gonna be in a James Bond movie sometime :P I highly recomend the place if you're in London and have time to get down to Cornwall.
Cue The Sun...
This reminds me of an old movie featuring these two stupid guys who get sealed in a Biodrome for 365d while just wanting to take a piss off the road.
Well... obviously they don't fit in and begin to destroy the nature. Also featuring two sexy female scientists
Quite amusing movie. Anyone remember the name?
0 001 11 1
Released in Novemember. I got it for Christmas but haven't had time to read it.
Got lots of pictures, but plenty of text too.
Eden by Tim Smit on Amazon UK
" They made a good try at it, and if they ever activate this eden project it would be nice to see if their's works."
I don't think you entirely understand, the eden project is a tourist attraction which is open now, people are visiting it and it is very popular. It is not designed to be a biosphere other than it is re-creating different environments from it's surroundings.
The idea is to introduce people to tropical and exotic plants which they might never see.. and to do so in the environmental conditions you would experience if you went to see them in the wild.
This isn't a closed system which is attempting to provide a demonstation of a viable enclosed habitat for the moon or other "hostile" environment. It really is a large green house in which each section is tailored to a different environment, with different soil, moisture, temperature etc.
It has been suggested the the construction techniques could be used to construct a biosphere type enclosure in space because of it's light weight construction techniques, which would make the materials easier to transport, but that was not it's primary intention.
If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let'em go, because, man, they're gone.
The wouldn't call it 'Eden' if they read This Other Eden by Ben Elton.
In that story, playing around 2080, a Bill-Gates
alike power-hungry super rich advertising genius
manages to sell comfortable family sized 'bio-domes' to half the world's population
to survive the upcoming ecological disaster that will make the earth unable to sustain life.
The Eden Project is a well-engineered, successfully-hyped tourist attraction. It contains exotic flora and fauna.
It is not science, it is engineering.
The Millenium Dome is a well-engineered, unsuccessfully-hyped tourist attraction.
It contains exotic particles such as Quarks, Gluons and many more yet to be discovered.
Is that science ?
some pictures can be found here http://f0.am/groworld/eden/index.phtml
I wonder what the viability of this kind of technology would be for recreating certain desirable regions of the world. Take, for example, prime grape growing regions in France, California, etc that produce award winning wines. Why couldn't a company design an enclosure that reproduces those conditions in, say, Nebraska where land is cheap and produce comparable crops? Would the cost of construction and continued environmental regulation outweigh any benefits?
-- "Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?"
"The Eden Project is basically a big green house."
No, it's transparant - the only green part about it is the plantlife.
What you really mean is:
"The Eden Project is basically a big greenhouse", but that's something else altogether.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
The classical domed city is entirely self contained. But a domed city where it wasn't sealed tight could maintain a better environment inside while not having nearly so many of the hassles. Abundant plants to keep the air clean in the dome, etc.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Milwaukee has had its 'Domes' for many years.
There are three linked domes each containing a different ecosystem and open to the public for touring.
It is called the Mitchell Park Horticultural Conservatory, and they began construction in 1959.
Link
XeoMage
Montreal have been having one of those for many year now, and I am sure a couple of other city have one too...
"It has been suggested the the construction techniques could be used to construct a biosphere type enclosure in space because of it's light weight construction techniques, "
Light weight is nice, but secondary. The primary function of any has to be to remain sealed at 14.7 Psi internal pressure. If it can't do that, then any suggestion to use it is laughable. Basically, there is no air in space, and any space traveller will need about 1 atmosphere of pressure to survive. Next it will have to shield them from radiation and thermally insulate them (the temperature extremes on somewhere like the moon are insane because it doesn't have an atmosphere to even them out). Light weight is a distant third on concerns (although cost of construction is a barrier, and weight effects that, doing it safely is far more important).
BlackGriffen
The real problem with the biodome projects is that they let guys like Pauly Shore in. That guy was no scientist!
I'm an Architecture Student at Bath , UK, and our civil engineering department is pretty well renowned so we had a lecture from the engineers of the Eden Project. Fascinating stuff. A few of the interesting things that they did:
A satellite survey of the site allowed them to make a 3D model of the clay pit, they could then reshape the landscape without having to bring fill to/from the site. They had special software that calculated volume of soil, so they just spread the existing material around.
GPS surveying. The base of each bubble comes down on to a concrete foundation. First, using the same 3D model, the intersection of bubble and ground is plotted, then on site a man with a gps reciever plots the centerline of the foundation all over the very irregular ground. The fact that the bubbles are based on spheres meant that as the ground conditions changed (the mine was still being worked during the design phase) only the edge of the bubbles had to be redesigned to adapt to the site.
The frame for the bubbles is based on the familiar "buckyball" arrangement like C-60 or a soccer (bleh) ball, only the pentagons are very small, and are surrounded by a large grid of hexagons. There is a fair amount of repition in the design (each fith of each dome is essentially symmetrical, the pentagon at the apex of each dome is openable for venting), but there are so many different pieces involved that humans could never make the pieces right. Instead, data from the 3d model was sent to the steelworkers, where a machine simply churned out thousands of individually numbered struts and nodes. These were then assembled in order on site.
The World's Largest Scaffolding was created inside each dome during construction. We saw some slides of this and it really was amazing. Imagine the shape of one of these domes, but filled with a regular 3D grid.
The ETFE foil that the envelope is made of is ridiculously thin. I forget the exact number, but it's measured in microns. There are three layers, giving two pockets in each segment. These can be inflated/deflated to take the weight of snow for instance. The largest segment is about 6 meters accross IIRC.
All the climate control is automatic. Vents open and close, humidifiers spray and heaters heat all day and night to keep the climate regular inside.
I went to visit Eden in November, and it was absolutely amazing. I won't repeat what's been said, but you should definately include it in your plans if you're coming to the UK. The education is so well done and so genuine that you can't help but learn. There's absolutely no cooporate sponsership or advertising on site. All the food is organic and all the staff have a genuine passion for plants. The only trouble is that it is too popular. There were no queues as such, but it was definately crowded. Brilliant day out though.
I have no
the only other comment about this is numbered 2854220 which means it was written *after* this one (2853551) ?
This is wrong. The Eden project is great, but it's not a closed system (it's not trying to be). The domes have heating, irrigation, etc.
They're just large, interestingly-built greenhouses. They've also been around for a couple of years - this story is quite out of date.
Worth a visit though, if you're in Devon or Cornwall. The project gets very busy though, avoid bank holiday w/ends at all costs.
andy.
Judging by the Eden www site, its installation looks bigger than the one in Montreal, but still, here's a link to the Montreal Biodome's website.
There are 536 tonnes of air in both the Biomes
volume inside HT Biome; 330,110m3
volume inside WT Biome; 85,620m3
Density of air = 1.225 Kg/m3 (at 15 deg C) - though this gives a mass of 509 tonnes.
Either way the air does not quite weigh as much as the steel but its close.
The Millennium Dome is a suspension type construction which is generally very light so I would guess that the air inside it weighs a lot less than the structure.
wot no sig
One of the original reasons for posting this story was the link to Mars habitats, here goes: Clearly to build a Biosphere 2-type structure on Mars would be stupendously expensive, mainly because of the weight of materials used and the "brute force" approach of taking everything with you.
I like the elegance of the Eden solution, although clearly it would have to undergo a lot of development to make it into a closed system. It's fundamental advantage is weight, or rather mass. The PFTE used to make the "pillows" might not withstand the fierce ultraviolet of Mars (but Eden's designers claim that the material should withstand Earth-level ultraviolet for several decades so maybe it would be OK for a medium-term mission) but they are very light to transport. Also, if inflated with a gas lighter than the surrounding Mars atmosphere then it is possible that the entire structure could be self-supporting - given the low pressure on Mars you would not need too much to inflate them. Coupled with Mars' low gravity, an Eden-type solution could enable very large structures to be constructed on Mars at a much lower cost than a Bioshpere 2 one. The gas filling should provide lots of insulation, and collect lots of sunlight for heat to boot. With plenty of space, there would be more room for oxygen- and food-producing plants, water storage, animals, etc.
I also like the idea of creating soil on-site. Soil is a very complex structure and usually takes a long time to develop, so anything that speeds it up will be at a premium on Mars.
NASA - please consider!
This sounds pretty cool, buuuuuuuuuudy.
ALG
personal attacks hurt, especially when deserved
If you really wanted to create a biosphere:
- Put the dome under water, to insure a good seal.
- Have an elevator shaft to the surface that you can seal easily, and introduce new "contestants.
- Have escape hatches in case elevator problems.
- Give a few million dollars to the person who can stand living isolated with plants longest.
- Put it on TV so it is self-funding of course.
Many of you will remember the excitement around biosphere 2, a project to enclose 8 people in a sealed environment to see if they could survive a year on just the resources produced inside the dome. It failed. (Although they did discover some interesting data from it).
Hahahaha. Nice misquote! Guess we can go back to the old vivisection argument, this time on humans...
Whoever wrote this Has Greatly Misunderstood the Eden Project.
It is NOT a project designed to create a closed, self-sustaining biosphere. It is a breath taking project to create a beautiful and educational display of the world's plant biomes.
it failed because humans are toxic
-------------------------
Stupid people suck.
anyone know of any other reason why Biosphere 2 should be considered a failure? why not consider it a tremendous success?
Ok, maybe not - but I got your attention, right?
Anyhow, here is a couple of great sites for those of you interested in geodesic dome construction:
Geodesics at the Monkey House
Geo Tech Systems, Inc.
Have fun!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
There's already a year-long summer bioproject. It's called Bermuda.
Virg
what stupid moderators, my karma is 50 and someone else posted it but it is on topic, wonko the sane did this in the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy by douglas adams, what morons
Biodome
What a waste of money. You could get the same results by just locking these people in a shopping mall for a year (put those electric dog collars on them so they dont slip out during business hours.)
I mean, what is the Galleria but a self-contained habitable environment? You've got a sealed vessel (more or less), filtered air (A/C), lots of potted trees for CO2-O2 conversion, food (Chick-Fil-A, etc), a place to sleep (the Sears bedding dept), and, of course, plenty to do (shop).
You could do the same experiment on a shoestring budget.
It's a good thing I'm around to think of this stuff.
I envision a TV program somewhere between "Survivor" and "Candid Camera" where they turn off the ventilation system and film the results.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy