Recent content by mjb

Hi Neal -- thanks for chiming in! I'll try to respond to your questions in order. Remember, I'm not saying anyone SHOULD create such systems, just that if one does, this is the way they (ideally anyway) work. There isn't any evaporation of water to speak of -- the systems I'm talking about...

andywg, your comments echoed some of the experience I've had and some of the input I've gotten from academic types who have created microcosms (e.g. for the space shuttle). "stocking lightly" -- as in very lightly -- seems to be a key consensus point. The advice is to limit biomass and...

Thanks for all the input! PaulasPets, I don't think you're quite right that NASA has been researching these things for deep space travels. Most of the systems they have been working on are largely mechanical with a few biological components. They haven't built anything to house humans that...

Hi Lateral Line & three-fingers, thanks for jumping in! Lateral Line, I do know about Biosphere 2. I will talk about it in my article, and it certainly is a wacky story. I am curious -- what do you mean when you say that it is "dysfunctional"? What would they have had to do in order to...

Thanks for responding fishyfinger and Miss Wiggle. As to whether closed systems can work in concept, the answer must be yes! That's because the Earth is basically a closed system -- open to energy but pretty much sealed in terms of materials. If you think of the Earth as a tank, its water...

Greetings all, I'm a writer doing a magazine piece about a really special type of aquarium: a "sealed microcosm." I wonder if anyone here has any personal experience creating them that I could compare to my own experience and reading. If you don't know what I mean by sealed microcosm, you...