Chapter 45 9.1 The co-pilot of the $100 million glass ark

"I feel like I'm in some distant space," Roy Wolford told reporters via video link.From September 26, 1991 to September 26, 1993, the Ark conducted its first two-year closed experiment. Roy was one of the people who lived in Biosphere 2 at the time.During that time, eight individuals, or rather eight biospheric beings, cut off from all other life on Earth and away from all substantial flow of matter propelled by life, they constructed in Pocket Gaia An isolated, autonomous life circle, and live in it.They seem to live in space. Walford is healthy, but extremely thin, giving people the feeling of not having enough to eat.During those two years, none of the biospherians had had enough to eat.Their ultra-tiny farm has been plagued by pests.Because they can't spray pesticides on these raging critters—otherwise they'll have to drink distilled water later—they're starving.Desperate biospherians once crawled in potato furrows, using portable blowers to drive leaf worms away, but without success.As a result, they lost a total of five staple food crops.One of the biospherians dropped from 208 pounds to 156 pounds.However, he made full preparations for this, and brought with him some clothes that were too small for him when he first arrived.

Some scientists don't think it's the most efficient way to have humans living in Bio2 from the start.Their consultant naturalist, Peter Warshall, said: "As a scientist, I'd be more in favor of enclosing only the bottom two or three types of organisms in the first year: single-celled microbes and lower. We can observe how this microbial microcosm regulates the atmosphere. Next, put everything in it again, close the system for a year, and compare the changes during the period.” Some scientists believe that modern humans who are difficult to serve should not enter the atmosphere at all. Biosphere 2, where humans are just adding some entertainment.There are also many scientists who are convinced that ecological research is meaningless compared to the practical goal of developing the technology for human survival beyond Earth.Ed Bass, the funder of Bio2, commissioned the formation of an independent scientific advisory board to judge competing views on the scientific significance and scheduling of the project. In July 1992, they submitted a report affirming the double significance of the experiment.The report states as follows:

As an example of the latter case, the first year of human inhabitation in a closed system produced a totally unexpected medical result.Routine blood tests on the isolated group of biospherians showed increased concentrations of pesticides and herbicides in their blood.Because every single environmental factor in Bio2 was continuously and precisely monitored, arguably the most closely monitored environment ever recorded, scientists knew there couldn't be any pesticides or herbicides in it.They even found in the blood of a biosphere man who had lived in a third world country, an ingredient in a pesticide that was banned in the United States 20 years ago.According to the doctor's speculation, due to the limited daily food, the biospheric people lost a lot of weight, and then began to consume the fat stored in the body in the past, resulting in the release of toxins left in the fat decades ago.Before Bio2 was built, it didn't make much scientific sense to accurately test people for toxins, because there was no way to strictly control what people ate, or even the air they breathed and what they were exposed to.But now there is.Bio2 provides a laboratory for precisely tracking the flow of pollutants not only in ecosystems, but also in the human body.

The human body itself is a vastly complex system - still unexplored despite our advanced medical knowledge - which we can only properly study in isolation from more complex life.Bio2 is an excellent way to conduct this research.But the Science Advisory Board ignored another reason for onboarding humans, a reason comparable in importance to preparing humans for space travel; this one had to do with control and assistance.Humans will act as the "thumbs to the thought path", be the chaperones who are present at the beginning, and once that stage is passed, there will be no need for humans.Once a closed ecosystem is stabilized, humans are not essential, but they may help stabilize the system.

For example, from the perspective of time cost, no scientist can afford such a loss: let the ecosystem that emerged after years of painstaking efforts collapse at any time, and have to start all over again.Humans living in the ecosphere can bring this closed system back from the brink of disaster; as long as they measure and record what they do, it does not violate the purpose of scientific research.For the most part, the man-made ecosystem of Bio2 ran on its own lines, and when it slid out of control or stopped functioning, the biospherians could help it.They share control with this emerging system.They are co-pilots.

One of the ways that biospheric hominids share control is by acting as "keystone predators"—ecological suppression of last resort.The number of plants or animals exceeding the ecological niche is subject to human "arbitration" and kept within a reasonable range.If the lavender bushes were overgrown, the biospherians would hack them back to the right density.When the grass on the savannah grows wildly and crowds out the living space of the cacti, they desperately weed.In fact, biospherians spend several hours a day weeding fields (not counting the time they spend weeding crop fields)."It's up to you how small a synthetic ecosystem you want to build," Adi said. "However, the smaller you build the system, the greater the role of humans as operators, because they have to behave better than what is imposed on the ecological community." The forces of nature are more powerful. What we receive from nature is unbelievable."

The bounty we receive from nature is mind-boggling — this is the message sent time and time again by the natural scientists involved in Bio2.The most missing ecological boon for Bio2 is disturbance.Sudden and unseasonable heavy rain, wind, lightning, falling trees, unexpected events, etc.As in that miniature "eco-ball," nature calls for some variety, whether it's gentle or rough.Perturbation is critical to nutrient cycling.A sudden fire can spawn a prairie or a forest.Peter Warshall said, "Everything in Bio2 is controlled, but nature needs to be wild and a little bit chaotic. Artificial disturbance is an expensive thing. In addition, disturbance is a It’s a form of communication, the way different species and different niches greet each other. Disturbances like shaking are also essential to maximize the efficiency of the niche. And we don’t have any here.”

Humans in Bio2 are the God of Disturbance, the representative of Chaos.As pilots, they have the responsibility to jointly control the ark, and from another perspective, they also have the responsibility to create a certain state of loss of control from time to time, to be saboteurs. Warshall was in charge of creating the miniature savannah and the tiny perturbations to it in Bio2.Savannahs evolved with periodic perturbations, he says, needing a natural boost now and then.Plants in the savannah need some disturbance, either by fire or by antelope."The savannah is so adaptive to disturbance that it can't sustain itself without it," he says, before joking that a sign could be placed on Bio2's savannah that says "Disturbance welcome."

Perturbation is a necessary catalyst for ecology, but replicating such perturbations in artificial environments like Bio2 will not be cheap.The wave machine that churned the lake was complex, noisy, expensive, and endlessly failing; worse, it could only create small, very regular waves—minimal disturbances.Huge fans beneath Bio2 move the air around it, simulating the movement of wind, but the wind barely moves the pollen.It is prohibitively expensive to create the wind that blows the pollen, and the smoke from the fire can overwhelm the humans inside. "If we're really going to do this project perfectly, we're going to simulate lightning for frogs, because heavy rain and lightning and thunder can stimulate them to reproduce," Warshall said. But what we're really simulating isn't Earth, it's a A simulation of Noah’s Ark. In fact, the question we’re asking is, how many ties can we sever and still guarantee the survival of a species?”

"Fortunately, we haven't collapsed yet!" Walter Adi chuckled softly.His simulated coral reefs at Bio2 and his simulated swamps at the Smithsonian have thrived despite constant isolation and access to nature's bounty (someone turned the tap on it, make it through a storm).Addy says, "They're very hard to kill when handled properly—and even the occasional mishandling is fine." One of my students forgot to unplug one of the Smithsonian's swamps one night and it flooded with salt water the main circuit board, and the whole thing blew up at 2am. We didn't fix the swamp's pump until the next afternoon, but the swamp survived. We don't know if we'd survive how long."