Ok... everyone now... a collective "Awwwww..."

Reason #8476 why I love Canadians - they are willing to put themselves in discomfort and possible danger to rescue moose that fall through frozen lakes.

Yesterday, Maja sent me the full version of the story picked up by the media last week. If you are interested in the full story by Hazel, let me know and I'll forward you the Word doc and the rest of the photos. It's all terribly sweet.

Well... it's the end of an era. Biosphere 2 in Arizona is up for sale. The $150 million facility opened in 1991 as a massive closed system (3.15-acre) that would last for 100 years of testing nature, technology and human endurance. Two early human survival missions lasted for two years and six months respectively.

I was fascinated by this project in the late 80s when it was being planned and bought tons of books on it. It was an absolute dream project for geeky ecology students. I would have given anything to work there at the time when it opened. It was like Disney's "The Land" greenhouses, but bigger and better...

14 years later... it's all over. Within a relatively short period of time, scientists realized that we have NO CLUE of how earth's complex ecosystems operate. It was great to have Columbia University involved for seven years, but it's still not clear to me how the relationship really broke down between them and the centre.

It's too bad... it just seems like no one wants to invest in large-scale closed systems reserach any more. Anyone have a couple hundred million extra dollars burning a hole in their pocket they'd like to chip in and buy the facility with?