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Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's

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Speaker 2: Charles w Chuck Bryant. Jerry's not here with us, but

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Speaker 2: all of these beautiful people are at the Sherman Horne

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Speaker 2: Symphony Center in Nashville, Tennessee. Man a lot. That was great.

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Speaker 2: Like I literally can't hear right now? What?

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Speaker 1: Oh, all right, everyone I want to talk about I

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Speaker 1: can't believe, by the way, that this was earlier this year.

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Speaker 1: Doesn't it seem like eight years ago?

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Speaker 2: It seems like that Blue Oyster Roads.

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Speaker 1: In fact, it was earlier this year. On the morning

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Speaker 1: of January fifth, I met Josh at the airport in

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Speaker 1: Atlanta at Hartsfield at a departure gate for what would

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Speaker 1: be our very first ever research field trip after fifteen years,

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Speaker 1: and we had a great time. By the way, spoiler,

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Speaker 1: the flight was booked for Tucson, Arizona because Tucson is

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Speaker 1: very close to Oracle, Arizona, specifically thirty two Biosphere Road

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Speaker 1: in Oracle, Arizona.

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Speaker 2: Nothing, okay, that's cool, we can work with that.

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Speaker 1: If you don't know what happened at Biosphere Road, then

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Speaker 1: strap in because you're about to hear the story of

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Speaker 1: the biosphere to experiment. Yes, raise your hand if you

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Speaker 1: have heard of this at all, Oh, a.

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Speaker 2: Couple of people.

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Speaker 1: That's good. That's about what we like. Has anyone seen

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Speaker 1: the documentary Spaceship Earth. It's good you, Oh right, isn't

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Speaker 1: it great?

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Speaker 2: Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Highly recommend the documentary. And I'll say this about twenty

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Speaker 1: more times. Highly recommend you going to visit the biosphere today.

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Speaker 1: It was really really great.

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Speaker 2: If you haven't seen the documentary, most of the show

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Speaker 2: probably won't make any sense to you, so we probably

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Speaker 2: should have thought that through.

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Speaker 1: We'll just talk to you.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so Biosphere two might make you think, like, wait

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Speaker 2: a minute, what was Biosphere one? Hadn't heard of it?

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Speaker 2: I missed it. Don't worry. You're actually on Biosphere one

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Speaker 2: right now, because Biosphere one is planet Earth. Biosphere two

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Speaker 2: was a highly ambitious project to seal off a little

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Speaker 2: piece of Earth from the rest of it and see

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Speaker 2: what happened. Basically, Yeah, and.

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Speaker 1: It could have been a great many things, right depending

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Speaker 1: on who you ask.

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Speaker 2: Oh, yes, I have that list right here. It could

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Speaker 2: have been an incredibly expensive piece of performance.

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Speaker 1: Art sort of.

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Speaker 2: Okay, we'll take that, a massive hub for gathering scientific.

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Speaker 1: Day, not as massive as they intended.

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Speaker 2: Right, an audaciously ambitious attempt to replicate Earth for sure. Okay,

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Speaker 2: the project that created the modern environmental movement.

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Speaker 1: I like that. I'm the judge of all this. In

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Speaker 1: part I will say, Okay, a fraud.

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Speaker 2: No, that wasn't a fraud, A failure, sort of failure,

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Speaker 2: a spectacular success.

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Speaker 1: Not that either. No, definitely somewhere somewhere in the middle

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Speaker 1: of those two.

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Speaker 2: You guys can be the judge of all that yourselves,

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Speaker 2: because we're going to tell you all about the Biosphere

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Speaker 2: two project, which was born in the eighties. It debuted

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Speaker 2: in the early nineties, but the whole thing was rooted

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Speaker 2: in the sixties. And you will see that it was

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Speaker 2: super duper rooted in the sixties. Because the people involved,

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Speaker 2: we should just say out front they weren't a cult.

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Speaker 2: It's going to seem at various turns that, yeah, guys,

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Speaker 2: these people are a cult. They were not a cult.

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Speaker 2: We did as much research as we possibly could. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: and they weren't a cult. It just seems like they

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Speaker 2: were a cult.

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Speaker 1: They were culty.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, cult adjacent, cult adjacent.

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Speaker 1: It's like when you're reading the real estate ads. It's

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Speaker 1: like they're not in the cult neighborhood, but they're pretty close. So,

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Speaker 1: like you said, it was rooted in the sixties, in

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Speaker 1: particular in a city called San Francisco, California. And this

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Speaker 1: was during one of their many summers of love that

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Speaker 1: they've had over the years. A very charismatic hippie named

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Speaker 1: John Allen. He went by the name Johnny Dolphin. I

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Speaker 1: refuse to say that. Twice I call him John Allen.

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Speaker 1: They had nicknames. I was about to say cute, but

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Speaker 1: they really weren't that cute. But John Allen was kind

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Speaker 1: of a magnet. He was a genius depending on who

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Speaker 1: you talked to. Very smart guy, obviously, but he was

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Speaker 1: a magnet for kind of like minded people at the

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Speaker 1: time in sixties San Francisco, which is to say, super creative,

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Speaker 1: very very smart, and as it turns out, also very ambitious,

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Speaker 1: which could find the face of other sort of hippie

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Speaker 1: dippy ish types out there at the time.

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Speaker 2: Right. And like you said, he was essentially a certified genius.

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Speaker 2: He had a master's degree in business from Harvard. Not

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Speaker 2: too shabby he had. If you don't mind, I have

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Speaker 2: to read this, a certificate in Advanced Physiological Systems for

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Speaker 2: Engineers from University of Michigan. Sounds made up, but apparently

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Speaker 2: it's legit, and he had a four A driven.

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Speaker 1: I thought you were going to say he had a

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Speaker 1: certificate in Advanced Physiological Systems for engineers from the back

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Speaker 1: of his cereal, because that's what it owns.

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Speaker 2: It definitely sounds like the kind of thing you would

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Speaker 2: get at a strip mall university, you know what I mean.

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Speaker 1: He was also trained as a metallurgist. He was a

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Speaker 1: management consultant. He was, like I said, super smart guy.

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Speaker 2: He was.

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Speaker 1: He had a lot of kind of famous hippi dippy

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Speaker 1: creative smart friends like Williams Burrows, Buckminster Fuller in particular,

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Speaker 1: who had he would have a pretty outsized influence on

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Speaker 1: John Allen and this project that we're going to talk

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Speaker 1: about in a couple of ways. One was the idea

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Speaker 1: of synergy that Bucky Fuller was really into, and as

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Speaker 1: you will learn with Biosphere too, synergy was a big,

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Speaker 1: big part of things, or that was supposed to be

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Speaker 1: at least and the geodesic dome, which everyone knows is

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Speaker 1: Bucky Fuller's sort of you know, pet design pipe dream

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Speaker 1: that became a reality.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, they incorporated it into the biosphere, that's right.

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Speaker 2: So this group that formed around John Allen, that was

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Speaker 2: not a cult. They were hanging out in San Francisco.

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Speaker 2: They were into creating art and doing performance pieces, and

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Speaker 2: they would put on these odd plays under the name

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Speaker 2: the Theater of All Possibilities. And I don't mean odd

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Speaker 2: like as an occasional I mean like odd plays really

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Speaker 2: tough to watch because you're watching adults use their imagination

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Speaker 2: and that is just uncomfortable to watch. And they did

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Speaker 2: it a lot like that was kind of their thing,

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Speaker 2: so much so they took it on the road. The

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Speaker 2: touring company was called the Caravan of Dreams. And you

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Speaker 2: can't say either of those names without going like.

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Speaker 1: This, I know, because they're written in an arc on

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Speaker 1: every poster of So they were they were doing these

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Speaker 1: little and some of these are in the documentaries that

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Speaker 1: show some of their little performance art pieces, and it's

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Speaker 1: really something they really they say things like free movement

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Speaker 1: and stuff like that, you know. But they were in

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Speaker 1: San Francisco in the sixties and then left San Francisco, California,

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Speaker 1: and like nineteen sixty eight because it had gotten too commercial.

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Speaker 1: They were a hard core Okay that these are how

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Speaker 1: sort of out there that these people were. And they

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Speaker 1: moved to New Mexico out in the middle of nowhere

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Speaker 1: and formed a little not a cult, they formed a

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Speaker 1: sort of a communeish kind of thing called the Synergia Ranch.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and so they're they kind of expanded their horizons.

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Speaker 2: They still put on odd performance pieces and plays.

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Speaker 1: They also not.

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Speaker 2: Do that, No, they it was really in their stay.

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Speaker 1: They felt the call.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. They also started building things too, like they got

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Speaker 2: interested in just making things with their own hands. And

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Speaker 2: a really good example of what they could do is

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Speaker 2: called the research vessel Heraclitis.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So here's the thing with the synergy Ins. They

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Speaker 1: were all really smart. But it's not like they took

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Speaker 1: an old boat to make this research vessel and they

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Speaker 1: sand it down the deck and restained it and kind

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Speaker 1: of spruced it up a bit like I could. Well

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Speaker 1: I couldn't do that either, Actually I could try to.

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Speaker 1: They built from scratch a ship, not a boat like

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Speaker 1: a ship, and they weren't shipbuilders, they weren't architects. They

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Speaker 1: figured out how to do it like this is kind

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Speaker 1: of how ambitious and smart they were. There was a

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Speaker 1: woman there who led the I guess architectural side of things,

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Speaker 1: who was not an architect, named Margaret Augustine, who's going

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Speaker 1: to come come back to not haunts, but she'll come

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Speaker 1: back a couple of times. Is she the one back there?

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Speaker 1: But they were super smart and they built this ship

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Speaker 1: that is like still sailing today.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it has been for fifty years basically,

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Speaker 2: and they again they built it from scratch, no knowledge

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Speaker 2: of shipbuilding. And it was in that kind of like

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Speaker 2: can do spirit that the biosphere project was born. And

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Speaker 2: the whole idea was to build this self sustaining habitat

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Speaker 2: that was closed off from the rest of Earth that

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Speaker 2: could sustain human life, very important, and to use it

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Speaker 2: to study this new field called biospherics, which is creating

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Speaker 2: closed systems to study Earth's ecosystems in kind of minute detail.

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Speaker 2: And it was new because they had essentially made it up,

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Speaker 2: but the whole thing had merit because at this time,

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Speaker 2: in like the early eighties, scientists around the world were

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Speaker 2: starting to notice that Earth was getting out of whack

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Speaker 2: in a lot of unsettling ways and had kind of

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Speaker 2: concluded that if we didn't figure out what to do

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Speaker 2: about that, things would be very bad for life on

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Speaker 2: Earth very soon. And spoiler alert, we did figure out

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Speaker 2: what to do about it, we didn't do it, and

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Speaker 2: now we're all doomed. Just FYI.

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Speaker 1: So to study something like Earth's ecosystem, like very complex stuff,

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Speaker 1: there's a couple of ways you can go about it.

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Speaker 1: You can get in a lab and you can bring

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Speaker 1: stuff in and you can study it there, and in

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Speaker 1: that case you're going to get really precise measurements and

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Speaker 1: really precise data, but it's not out in the real world,

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Speaker 1: so it's you sort of get what you get. The

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Speaker 1: other way to do is to go out in the

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Speaker 1: real world and study stuff, and people had been doing

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Speaker 1: both for a very long time, and it's always been

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Speaker 1: that trade off for science, Like you go out in

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Speaker 1: the real world and you're going to get real, like

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Speaker 1: more natural results, but the data is not going to

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Speaker 1: be as accurate because you don't have all your toys

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Speaker 1: out there necessarily sure, And what bios sphere offered was

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Speaker 1: basically the chance to kind of take the best of

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Speaker 1: both worlds and do both all that once.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and also because it was kind of compact in size,

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Speaker 2: stuff that happened out on biosphere one over the course

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Speaker 2: of very long time scales happened much shorter in biosphere

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Speaker 2: two because it was tiny, so you could actually track

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Speaker 2: carbon isotopes as it made it through the carbon cycle,

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Speaker 2: which is kind of useful, and it would make a

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Speaker 2: bitch and test bed for offerth habitation on Mars. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: which they predicted what happen by two thousand and five.

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Speaker 1: A little bit off right there yet, but like here's

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Speaker 1: one example of sort of the ideas that they think

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Speaker 1: could spring from this was they thought those and we'll

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Speaker 1: meet all the biospherians soon enough. Spoiler alert, that's what

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Speaker 1: they were called. They went from synergi ins to biospherians,

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Speaker 1: but one was named Linda Lee. She was a botanist

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Speaker 1: and what she wanted to accomplish there one of the things,

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Speaker 1: at least was to figure out how little tissue that

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Speaker 1: you could get, like how cells that you could collect

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Speaker 1: and still yield a viable plant. And the idea being like,

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Speaker 1: one day maybe we can have like a jungle in

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Speaker 1: the size of a shoebox that like jets and stuff

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Speaker 1: like add water and you get a jungle kind of thing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, she even brought her own shoebox inside it. Being

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Speaker 2: nineteen ninety one, it was an La Gear shoebox.

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Speaker 1: Did you okay, Gear? That was a nice surprise. I

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Speaker 1: thought I thought that was off the dome. It's still great, thanks, okay.

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Speaker 2: So if you put all this stuff together, this is

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Speaker 2: like a really good idea that the Synergians had, and

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Speaker 2: they were just the kind of people to do it,

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Speaker 2: as we've seen. But you can really argue that the

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Speaker 2: project would not have happened had a guy named Ed

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Speaker 2: Bass not been a member of the group, and he

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Speaker 2: had been since I think his early twenty because he

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Speaker 2: joined in nineteen seventy four. And the reason he was

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Speaker 2: so important is because he was a billionaire.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, specifically because you know, this sing was going to

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Speaker 1: require a lot of money, as we'll learn. But he

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Speaker 1: was the son of a guy named Perry Bass, and

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Speaker 1: Perry Bass was at the time one of the richest

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Speaker 1: dudes in the United States. He was a billionaire. He

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Speaker 1: was a Texas oil tycoon, and somehow had one son

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Speaker 1: that became an environmentalist. I don't know if he was

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Speaker 1: like the shame of the family. I do know that

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Speaker 1: that Thanksgiving was probably a little awkward when he brought

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Speaker 1: up this idea to Pops. I think Perry was probably like, son,

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Speaker 1: you're going to do what you're going to get? How

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Speaker 1: many millions for a bios something? Why can't you start

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Speaker 1: a minor league baseball team like your brother Bobby? And

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Speaker 1: that's Perry Mass.

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Speaker 2: That was a great Perry Bass.

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Speaker 1: Everybody indeed, but Ed Bass was in and he funded

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Speaker 1: the thing to the tune of between one hundred and

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Speaker 1: fifty and two hundred million dollars nineteen what eighty something dollars. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: well it's like you're double that now, yeah, all right,

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Speaker 1: double So we're usually more accurate in our updated inflation conversion.

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Speaker 2: So he was. Actually he'd financed a lot of projects

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Speaker 2: for the group. They had this thing where he would

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Speaker 2: buy like a plot of land somewhere in the world

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Speaker 2: and they would like build something on it or improve

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Speaker 2: it somehow, And there's still stuff around today. There's the

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Speaker 2: Hotel Veyra in Katmandu. It's a hotel they own. There's

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Speaker 2: the October Gallery in London.

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Speaker 1: Our gallery, yep.

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Speaker 2: And so they called it the ecopreneurial spirit, so like

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Speaker 2: they were hippies, but they weren't shy about making money too,

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Speaker 2: and that's what this whole biosphere project was in part

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Speaker 2: to Ed bass.

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Speaker 1: For sure, Yeah, because he thought, all right, here's what

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Speaker 1: we're gonna do. We're gonna launch this massive science project,

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Speaker 1: which I think ended up being at the time the

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Speaker 1: single largest privately funded science project in human history. And

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Speaker 1: he said, but here's how we can make a little

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Speaker 1: scratch off this, A little little cheese. What do you

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Speaker 1: kids say these days?

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Speaker 2: What else? Bread? I think they say bread.

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Speaker 1: Is bread back, little bread, Little Sosamolians. Sure, little Nashi, Yeah, nashtag, nashtag, nashtag,

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Speaker 1: ecopreneurial nice, all right, nailed it. Jerry cut that out,

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Speaker 1: did not nail it. So his idea was, here's what

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Speaker 1: we're gonna do. We're gonna start this big project and

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Speaker 1: we're gonna eventually come up with all these all this

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Speaker 1: great data and these science ideas that we can patent,

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Speaker 1: and then one day when we need to live on Mars,

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Speaker 1: NASA is going to go, hey, guys, how much to

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Speaker 1: license that jungle in a box you came up with?

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Speaker 1: And Ed bassa just sit back and cackle and make

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Speaker 1: a ton of money. So that was one way to

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Speaker 1: make money. And then they had another great idea to

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Speaker 1: make money.

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Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, they were going to charge tourists twelve ninety

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Speaker 2: five to come gawk at the people who are sealed

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Speaker 2: off in the Biosphere facility. And they did.

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Speaker 1: It's right, it's all glass. You can just peer in

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Speaker 1: and make fun of them all day long. Kids.

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Speaker 2: So they formed a venture or an LLC I guess,

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Speaker 2: called Space Biosphere Ventures, And in true Synergian fashion, all

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Speaker 2: these hippies who had no experience being CEOs and directors

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Speaker 2: of a large, multi million dollar corporation were now exactly

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Speaker 2: that that's right, and they set about getting to work

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Speaker 2: like there was an architect named Phil Hawes, and I

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Speaker 2: believe he pulled out every techie style he could think

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Speaker 2: of to create this place. Chuck likes it.

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Speaker 1: It's amazing.

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Speaker 2: It looks like the headquarters to Heaven from a movie

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Speaker 2: in the eighties. It's it's what it always struck me,

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Speaker 2: as you know, that's exactly what it's like. There's like

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Speaker 2: barrel roofs, there's that geodesic dome. The thing that really

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Speaker 2: gets it for me is everything is made out of

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Speaker 2: this like shiny powder coated aluminum tubing that really locks

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Speaker 2: it into like nineteen ninety and that's exactly what it

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Speaker 2: looks like still to It's.

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Speaker 1: Like Buck Rogers in the twentieth century or their Disney's

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Speaker 1: vision of you know, of tomorrow Land, basically.

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Speaker 2: Very much so it's very much like that. That stuff moldy.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, put a pin in that. So the plan, the

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Speaker 1: original plan was for Biosphere two to run for one

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Speaker 1: hundred years, and like every couple of years or so,

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Speaker 1: just cycling a new team of Biasparians to take the

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Speaker 1: place of the old They would go into some like airlock,

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Speaker 1: they would swap places. They would keep it sealed because

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Speaker 1: we'll stress out a bunch. The whole point was to

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Speaker 1: keep this thing sealed, like if the problem happened, they

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Speaker 1: couldn't be like, well, let's just open up the doors

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Speaker 1: and bring some stuff in to help us along. They

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Speaker 1: really wanted to see what it would be like, and

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Speaker 1: the only way to do that was to seal it

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Speaker 1: up tight. So one hundred years was the original goal.

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Speaker 1: News spread around the world. People were seriously jazzed. I

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Speaker 1: have no idea how I missed this because I was

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Speaker 1: like early college at the time. I knew nothing about

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Speaker 1: it somehow, except my only thing I can think. As

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Speaker 1: I was in early college at the time, I wasn't

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Speaker 1: center around watching the news. You know what I'm saying? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: how do you think it's going good?

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Speaker 2: I think he's going quite well so far. Oh yeah, okay,

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Speaker 2: Well then that means we have to take a message break,

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Speaker 2: so please bear with us. That's right, because we'll be

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Speaker 2: right back.

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Speaker 3: Sish, stuffy jaws, shop soft your s.

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Speaker 1: We're back, everybody.

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Speaker 2: You guys can thank Jerry for that.

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Speaker 4: You go to don't buy your stuff at the post office,

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Speaker 4: sleep on this mattress or buy the was it the

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Speaker 4: twenty twelve Camra?

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Speaker 2: Yes?

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Speaker 1: Oh oh you guys still hear that one?

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Speaker 2: Anyone? Some of the old ones? Are you?

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Speaker 1: I don't know what salesperson made that forever deal?

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Speaker 2: That was quite a deal.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that won't go away, all right? So finally we're

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Speaker 1: back everyone, Thanks for coming. Finally, finally, finally, On September

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Speaker 1: twenty sixth, nineteen ninety one, eight people, four men and

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Speaker 1: four women who we will meet very shortly called the Biospherians,

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Speaker 1: began their first what was to be a two year

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Speaker 1: mission of the one hundred year Experiment and were sealed

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Speaker 1: off this big press thing they wore, these Mork from

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Speaker 1: Orc spacesuit.

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Speaker 2: Jumpsuit things, very very weird.

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Speaker 1: For real, like broad shoulders, cinched at the waist.

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Speaker 2: They're like, don't forget we left San Francisco for New

359
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Speaker 2: Mexico in the late sixties. That's how hardcore we are.

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Speaker 2: That's right. I just want to drive that home. And

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Speaker 2: I think also somebody who's playing the flute.

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Speaker 1: As these so floutist if I'm not mistaken, the kind

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Speaker 1: of when you watch the it's kind of funny because

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Speaker 1: they couldn't get the door to seal it first, and

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Speaker 1: everyone was like, oh, that's the whole point now, that

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Speaker 1: they couldn't open it. That's what it was. Yeah, it

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Speaker 1: was two sealed and they were all just standing there

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Speaker 1: kind of like this. But they got in. They sealed

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Speaker 1: themselves in, and here were the eight biosperians.

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Speaker 2: Oh me, uh, I knew it was me. I'm just teething.

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Speaker 2: First up is Mark Nelson. We mentioned him first because

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Speaker 2: he was, I guess considered the captain of the team,

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Speaker 2: mostly because he was the truest believer of this group

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Speaker 2: of true believers, because they had selected from the group

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Speaker 2: of synergians they didn't like go find the greatest scientists

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Speaker 2: in the world or like astronauts or anything. They just said, Hey,

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Speaker 2: you seem enthusiastic. I like the way you do the

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Speaker 2: free body movement stuff. Get in there, Get in this

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Speaker 2: red jumpsuit. That is seriously, who this group of eight

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Speaker 2: people were.

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Speaker 1: That's right, you could be our Ryan Tannehill. He's not here,

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Speaker 1: There's no way, no, he's got football to play this weekend.

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Speaker 1: Abigail Alling was the next person we're gonna mention. She

384
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Speaker 1: was a marine biologist. Jane Pointer is next. She was

385
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Speaker 1: in charge of the farm and the farm equipment and

386
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Speaker 1: stuff like that, and she was in the documentary. You

387
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Speaker 1: will see. It's very controversial because Jane Pointer actually is

388
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Speaker 1: the only Bisparian to leave what you weren't supposed to do.

389
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Speaker 1: During the experiment. She had an accident where she cut

390
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Speaker 1: off part of her finger in a rice huller.

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Speaker 2: I think I'll do it.

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Speaker 1: Whatever that is apparently got a whole rice and I

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Speaker 1: just thought it came in a.

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Speaker 2: Bag with a little piece of finger in it.

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00:21:41,160 --> 00:21:41,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 2: It's the lucky bag. That means you get a million dollars.

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Speaker 1: Don't add too much water because that thing becomes a

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Speaker 1: full finger.

399
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Speaker 2: It turns into a Dinosaurs preface.

400
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Speaker 1: But it was very controversial when it happened, because you know,

401
00:21:54,280 --> 00:21:57,439
Speaker 1: she had to leave because she needed, you know, a

402
00:21:57,520 --> 00:22:01,160
Speaker 1: hospital to take care of her briefly. But here's the deal.

403
00:22:01,320 --> 00:22:05,240
Speaker 1: She came back in carrying these two large Duffel bags

404
00:22:05,320 --> 00:22:08,520
Speaker 1: that she didn't leave with, and they weren't supposed to do, like, oh,

405
00:22:08,560 --> 00:22:11,160
Speaker 1: by the way, we forgot all these things, go get them.

406
00:22:11,480 --> 00:22:13,200
Speaker 1: The whole point of this whole thing, once again was

407
00:22:13,240 --> 00:22:15,880
Speaker 1: this seal yourself in to see if it was possible

408
00:22:16,080 --> 00:22:18,960
Speaker 1: not to cheat a little bit, because it would render

409
00:22:19,000 --> 00:22:22,119
Speaker 1: the results kind of moot. So she comes in these

410
00:22:22,200 --> 00:22:24,239
Speaker 1: Duffel bags will come back later. I don't know what

411
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Speaker 1: was in them. I don't even think they ever found out.

412
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Speaker 1: I think it was probably fifteen pounds a weed. That's

413
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Speaker 1: what I might have brought back in. I'm just saying.

414
00:22:34,080 --> 00:22:37,280
Speaker 2: The upshot is there's no hospitals or Duffel bags on Mars.

415
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Speaker 2: So people weren't really super happy.

416
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Speaker 1: About it, you know, like the old song goes sure.

417
00:22:43,000 --> 00:22:46,600
Speaker 2: So the next guy's Roy Walford. He was the crew physician,

418
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Speaker 2: who's the oldest one, super old. He was like sixty five, right,

419
00:22:51,840 --> 00:22:54,359
Speaker 2: But he was in great shape because his scientific interest

420
00:22:54,520 --> 00:22:58,239
Speaker 2: was at the intersection of anti aging and nutrition, and

421
00:22:58,280 --> 00:23:00,359
Speaker 2: he had come up with his own diet, called it

422
00:23:00,440 --> 00:23:07,360
Speaker 2: the calorie restricted optimal nutrition diet or Krone diet. Terrible

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00:23:07,480 --> 00:23:08,560
Speaker 2: name for a diet.

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Speaker 1: They're like, you know, that's the same name as a

425
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Speaker 1: bowel disease.

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Speaker 2: He said, oh, I know. So he really wanted to

427
00:23:17,400 --> 00:23:20,399
Speaker 2: get his chance at like experimenting with these people with

428
00:23:20,480 --> 00:23:23,240
Speaker 2: the Krone diet, and my goodness, he got his chance,

429
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Speaker 2: as we'll see.

430
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Speaker 1: That's right. Next up we have Mark van Fillow. He

431
00:23:27,119 --> 00:23:31,280
Speaker 1: was a Belgian scientist and he operated the life support equipment,

432
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Speaker 1: including what you'll hear a little bit more about this

433
00:23:34,600 --> 00:23:38,080
Speaker 1: giant lung in the bottom of this facility that breathes

434
00:23:38,359 --> 00:23:41,199
Speaker 1: for the facility. And here's a little tip. If you

435
00:23:41,240 --> 00:23:43,959
Speaker 1: ever go to buy a Sphere two again, you can

436
00:23:43,960 --> 00:23:48,560
Speaker 1: still go there. It's amazing. Take the time to take

437
00:23:48,600 --> 00:23:51,160
Speaker 1: the tour, sort of the underneath tour. It's like twelve

438
00:23:51,160 --> 00:23:54,160
Speaker 1: twelve bucks extra, which Josh sprang for by the way,

439
00:23:54,480 --> 00:23:56,600
Speaker 1: paid my way in like a like a good date.

440
00:23:59,280 --> 00:24:00,560
Speaker 2: Never even asked for it back.

441
00:24:00,640 --> 00:24:05,000
Speaker 1: Appreciate that yet at the end of everything, At the

442
00:24:05,080 --> 00:24:06,399
Speaker 1: end of stuff, you should know you're gonna be like,

443
00:24:06,480 --> 00:24:13,639
Speaker 1: and here's this twelve dollars please, plus inflation. So he

444
00:24:13,840 --> 00:24:16,800
Speaker 1: was dating Abigail Auling. There were two couples among this

445
00:24:16,840 --> 00:24:19,679
Speaker 1: group of eight, which can get a little thorny. The

446
00:24:19,720 --> 00:24:21,520
Speaker 1: reason we know that they were a couple was a

447
00:24:21,600 --> 00:24:23,840
Speaker 1: couple of reasons. One they mentioned it in the documentary,

448
00:24:24,320 --> 00:24:26,600
Speaker 1: but two, even if they headn't have said that. There

449
00:24:26,680 --> 00:24:29,399
Speaker 1: is a shot sort of in the background at one

450
00:24:29,400 --> 00:24:34,200
Speaker 1: point where he feeds her a banana on camera and

451
00:24:34,560 --> 00:24:36,720
Speaker 1: not like peel a banana and like, would you like,

452
00:24:37,080 --> 00:24:38,200
Speaker 1: here's how I would do it with you. Would you

453
00:24:38,240 --> 00:24:41,280
Speaker 1: like to break off a piece of banana Josh? Why no,

454
00:24:41,520 --> 00:24:44,199
Speaker 1: he stuck it in her mouth with his hand.

455
00:24:44,600 --> 00:24:46,880
Speaker 2: Thank you for not demonstrating that on me too.

456
00:24:47,560 --> 00:24:50,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean things have changed. I know the workplace

457
00:24:50,760 --> 00:24:52,800
Speaker 1: has changed, but even in nineteen ninety one, you don't

458
00:24:53,080 --> 00:24:55,439
Speaker 1: do that to a female coworker. You don't do that.

459
00:24:56,119 --> 00:24:59,560
Speaker 1: It's never been okay the first office you did not

460
00:24:59,680 --> 00:25:01,480
Speaker 1: feed did someone a banana like that?

461
00:25:01,520 --> 00:25:04,399
Speaker 2: For sure? That's true. That's what it says on the

462
00:25:04,440 --> 00:25:09,840
Speaker 2: T shirt. There was Sally Silverstone who was the most

463
00:25:09,880 --> 00:25:12,040
Speaker 2: widely liked of the group. We get the impression she

464
00:25:12,040 --> 00:25:16,400
Speaker 2: got along with everyone. She was an English social studies teacher,

465
00:25:16,840 --> 00:25:20,000
Speaker 2: and I think she was in charge of the food basically, right.

466
00:25:20,040 --> 00:25:23,639
Speaker 1: Yeah, she was the chef. I mean she made banana

467
00:25:23,920 --> 00:25:28,720
Speaker 1: everything out of bananas. We'll see. She ended up writing

468
00:25:28,720 --> 00:25:35,400
Speaker 1: a book afterward called Eating In Thank You Colan From

469
00:25:35,400 --> 00:25:39,080
Speaker 1: the Field to the Kitchen the Recipes from Visca too.

470
00:25:39,200 --> 00:25:42,400
Speaker 1: She originally called it eating in Colon guys, I mean

471
00:25:42,480 --> 00:25:45,520
Speaker 1: really eating in, but they changed the title.

472
00:25:47,480 --> 00:25:50,960
Speaker 2: He's next Tavera mccallums. Next, he was in charge of

473
00:25:50,960 --> 00:25:54,399
Speaker 2: the analytical chemistry lab. He was one half of the

474
00:25:54,440 --> 00:25:58,240
Speaker 2: other couple with Jane Pointer. And they're actually still involved

475
00:25:58,280 --> 00:26:00,760
Speaker 2: in this kind of stuff today. They're like, that's right.

476
00:26:00,800 --> 00:26:03,760
Speaker 2: They formed some company that is exploring how to live

477
00:26:03,800 --> 00:26:04,399
Speaker 2: off of earth.

478
00:26:04,480 --> 00:26:06,399
Speaker 1: That's cool, you know why because he never fed her

479
00:26:06,400 --> 00:26:10,520
Speaker 1: a banana on camera, That's right. And then there's where

480
00:26:10,560 --> 00:26:12,240
Speaker 1: was he from? He was from? He was European too,

481
00:26:12,280 --> 00:26:16,159
Speaker 1: I think, No, okay, he was from US a all

482
00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:23,080
Speaker 1: right music city. Sure, he was a little Nashian. So

483
00:26:23,760 --> 00:26:26,240
Speaker 1: the last person is Linda Lee, and Linda Lee was

484
00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:30,360
Speaker 1: the biome design manager of the Desert Rainforest in Savannah,

485
00:26:30,359 --> 00:26:32,159
Speaker 1: and she was the one who was looking for that

486
00:26:32,320 --> 00:26:34,760
Speaker 1: jungle in a box idea, right, all right, So that's

487
00:26:34,920 --> 00:26:35,359
Speaker 1: the eight.

488
00:26:35,240 --> 00:26:38,080
Speaker 2: Of them, that's the eight people. There are also thirty

489
00:26:38,119 --> 00:26:41,520
Speaker 2: eight hundred species of plants and animals in there. They

490
00:26:41,560 --> 00:26:44,840
Speaker 2: put in everything from cockroaches to kind of till the

491
00:26:44,960 --> 00:26:50,679
Speaker 2: soil and make it even richer. They put in these

492
00:26:50,720 --> 00:26:53,840
Speaker 2: these little primates that look kind of cat like, they

493
00:26:53,840 --> 00:26:57,240
Speaker 2: have huge eyes. They're adorable. They're called bush babies. Anyone

494
00:26:57,240 --> 00:27:00,359
Speaker 2: ever seen a bush baby? Super cute. We want to

495
00:27:00,359 --> 00:27:02,120
Speaker 2: take out your phone right now and look, we won't

496
00:27:02,160 --> 00:27:05,159
Speaker 2: be mad. They're so cute that we're pretty sure that

497
00:27:05,240 --> 00:27:08,320
Speaker 2: they were just put in there just because they're so cute.

498
00:27:08,440 --> 00:27:11,920
Speaker 1: They had to have something, right sure. And here was

499
00:27:11,960 --> 00:27:13,760
Speaker 1: the idea, is you know, they were gonna it was

500
00:27:13,800 --> 00:27:15,960
Speaker 1: all about synergy. And we talked a lot about synergy

501
00:27:15,960 --> 00:27:18,840
Speaker 1: on our show, how in nature, like everything is working

502
00:27:18,880 --> 00:27:22,040
Speaker 1: together ideally to help everyone out. And that was the

503
00:27:22,080 --> 00:27:25,040
Speaker 1: idea here in a shrunken version of Earth, is you're

504
00:27:25,080 --> 00:27:30,920
Speaker 1: gonna have plants that are pollinated by these specific very

505
00:27:30,920 --> 00:27:33,280
Speaker 1: specific because it can bring in everything. It's not Noah's

506
00:27:33,320 --> 00:27:36,840
Speaker 1: Ark for goodness sakes, because you know that was real.

507
00:27:37,440 --> 00:27:40,439
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if you knew that they brought in

508
00:27:41,080 --> 00:27:43,840
Speaker 1: things to pollinate those specific plants, like here, we need

509
00:27:43,840 --> 00:27:46,840
Speaker 1: these insects, We need these plants because they're going to

510
00:27:46,920 --> 00:27:50,560
Speaker 1: maximize oxygen for us, and we're going to breed stuff

511
00:27:50,600 --> 00:27:52,680
Speaker 1: out and they're going to breed stuff in and it's

512
00:27:52,720 --> 00:27:54,679
Speaker 1: going to be a beautiful exchange of CO two and

513
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:58,000
Speaker 1: oxygen and everything's going to be working in synergy with

514
00:27:58,040 --> 00:27:59,640
Speaker 1: each other to make this a grand success.

515
00:27:59,720 --> 00:28:03,280
Speaker 2: Exactly. Because it was a sealed facility, everything had to

516
00:28:03,280 --> 00:28:06,240
Speaker 2: be recycled, Like you said, their breaths were recycled with

517
00:28:06,320 --> 00:28:11,359
Speaker 2: the plants, their wastewater was put through this marsh, and

518
00:28:11,400 --> 00:28:15,640
Speaker 2: then they ended up drinking their own pea. Essentially. It

519
00:28:15,680 --> 00:28:19,600
Speaker 2: was and that's the appropriate response to that. It was

520
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:22,320
Speaker 2: pretty amazing. It was like the whole design was pretty great,

521
00:28:22,680 --> 00:28:27,000
Speaker 2: and all of this was in five different biomes. And

522
00:28:27,080 --> 00:28:31,199
Speaker 2: a biome is a type of ecosystem that is a

523
00:28:31,680 --> 00:28:35,000
Speaker 2: really specific type of ecosystem that's made up from the

524
00:28:35,040 --> 00:28:38,960
Speaker 2: interactions of all like the every rock and rain drop

525
00:28:39,080 --> 00:28:43,760
Speaker 2: and rubber tree and reindeer all interacting and all sorts

526
00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:47,320
Speaker 2: of difficult to be a weird, weird biome, but they're

527
00:28:47,360 --> 00:28:49,760
Speaker 2: all interacting in all sorts of complex ways, and all

528
00:28:49,800 --> 00:28:53,480
Speaker 2: of those complexities formed the characteristics of that biome.

529
00:28:54,280 --> 00:28:57,400
Speaker 1: In elementary school, when they said, Josh, what are the

530
00:28:57,560 --> 00:28:59,680
Speaker 1: four ours? And you should have? I said, well, blurted

531
00:28:59,720 --> 00:29:03,840
Speaker 1: out eating writing, arithmetic. You said, rainbows, reindeer, and what else.

532
00:29:03,880 --> 00:29:07,920
Speaker 2: I like yours? I said, rain drops, rocks, rubber trees,

533
00:29:07,920 --> 00:29:10,840
Speaker 2: and reindeers. Yeah.

534
00:29:11,120 --> 00:29:18,000
Speaker 1: Thanks, man, Man, that's a That's a Carpenter song if

535
00:29:18,040 --> 00:29:21,720
Speaker 1: I've ever heard one. You know, she was a hell

536
00:29:21,760 --> 00:29:24,440
Speaker 1: of a drummer, Karen Carpentery.

537
00:29:24,600 --> 00:29:24,880
Speaker 2: That right.

538
00:29:25,600 --> 00:29:28,440
Speaker 1: There are videos of Karen Carpenter just get singing down

539
00:29:28,640 --> 00:29:30,040
Speaker 1: on the drums, which I never knew.

540
00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:33,160
Speaker 2: Great, she was the Neil Pert of your day.

541
00:29:33,240 --> 00:29:36,560
Speaker 1: All right, where are we here? Should I put on

542
00:29:36,560 --> 00:29:38,200
Speaker 1: my glasses? Now? I shouldn't put on my glasses? All right,

543
00:29:38,280 --> 00:29:41,160
Speaker 1: let's talk about these biomes. There were five of them

544
00:29:41,200 --> 00:29:46,080
Speaker 1: in total. Each, like you said, each ecosystem had a

545
00:29:46,160 --> 00:29:50,600
Speaker 1: very specific set of interactions supposedly within it. But as

546
00:29:50,600 --> 00:29:52,920
Speaker 1: we'll see, there were variables that didn't let that happen.

547
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:56,600
Speaker 1: One was the and we walked through each of these.

548
00:29:56,600 --> 00:30:00,800
Speaker 1: They're still there today. The tropical Amazonian rainforest has a

549
00:30:00,880 --> 00:30:05,160
Speaker 1: twenty foot waterfall. Pretty cool, it's amazing. There was a savannah,

550
00:30:05,600 --> 00:30:09,160
Speaker 1: very useful. There was a coastal fog desert, kind of

551
00:30:09,240 --> 00:30:13,120
Speaker 1: like the west coast of Mexico, like south of California.

552
00:30:14,800 --> 00:30:17,479
Speaker 1: What else was there? There was a freshwater marsh and

553
00:30:17,560 --> 00:30:21,480
Speaker 1: get this, you guys, there was a mangrove marsh. They

554
00:30:21,520 --> 00:30:25,280
Speaker 1: had saltwater mangroves there, my favorite plant on planet Earth.

555
00:30:25,520 --> 00:30:29,120
Speaker 1: They had on little Earth out there, and that flowed

556
00:30:29,160 --> 00:30:33,000
Speaker 1: into the showstopper, which was a nearly seven hundred thousand

557
00:30:33,040 --> 00:30:37,760
Speaker 1: gallon ocean. It had a coral reef, It had a

558
00:30:37,840 --> 00:30:41,560
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty foot stretch of beach, and it

559
00:30:41,640 --> 00:30:45,120
Speaker 1: was operated by vacuum pumps. And we know this because

560
00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:47,720
Speaker 1: we were in the Underneath tour and I was like, Josh,

561
00:30:47,800 --> 00:30:50,560
Speaker 1: look of this. They're just a random pole that had

562
00:30:50,560 --> 00:30:55,480
Speaker 1: a button that said Ocean on, Ocean off. And I've

563
00:30:55,560 --> 00:31:00,480
Speaker 1: never wanted to press something more in my life.

564
00:31:01,120 --> 00:31:03,520
Speaker 2: Then the humans they lived in their own little biome,

565
00:31:03,560 --> 00:31:07,280
Speaker 2: the anthropogenic biome wing and for some reason, they decked

566
00:31:07,280 --> 00:31:09,760
Speaker 2: it out in the purplest purple you've ever seen.

567
00:31:10,000 --> 00:31:10,800
Speaker 1: It's so cool.

568
00:31:10,960 --> 00:31:14,320
Speaker 2: I suspect it was some sort of emotional experiment. They

569
00:31:14,320 --> 00:31:18,480
Speaker 2: wanted to crack them because there's no explanation where I

570
00:31:18,520 --> 00:31:21,400
Speaker 2: was like, was purple big in nineteen ninety I was like, no, no,

571
00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:23,160
Speaker 2: it's never been big because.

572
00:31:23,120 --> 00:31:26,200
Speaker 1: It's tied to print somehow. But I can't.

573
00:31:26,520 --> 00:31:28,640
Speaker 2: Only Prince could pull off purple, you know what I mean.

574
00:31:29,440 --> 00:31:33,560
Speaker 2: So in the alongside that, the purple wing that they

575
00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:36,320
Speaker 2: lived in was a agro forestry plot where they grew

576
00:31:36,360 --> 00:31:40,240
Speaker 2: their food and for a short time it was probably

577
00:31:40,280 --> 00:31:43,480
Speaker 2: the most productive quarter acre of crop land in the

578
00:31:43,680 --> 00:31:44,520
Speaker 2: entire world.

579
00:31:45,240 --> 00:31:49,440
Speaker 1: Short time. It's just a hint of where things going.

580
00:31:50,720 --> 00:31:53,120
Speaker 1: And then beneath it all, like we said, was the

581
00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:55,120
Speaker 1: tour that you can take now. Had all the computers

582
00:31:55,160 --> 00:31:57,040
Speaker 1: and stuff, which if you go, it's kind of funny

583
00:31:57,120 --> 00:31:59,240
Speaker 1: to laugh at the stuff now, these you know, late

584
00:31:59,240 --> 00:32:02,360
Speaker 1: eighties computer systems, But they did the job back then.

585
00:32:02,560 --> 00:32:05,000
Speaker 1: At this giant lung that you can still stand over.

586
00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:06,760
Speaker 1: It's very intense, very cool.

587
00:32:07,280 --> 00:32:09,560
Speaker 2: So the whole thing was put together in a three

588
00:32:09,560 --> 00:32:13,400
Speaker 2: acre facility. It sounds pretty big until you stop and

589
00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:16,239
Speaker 2: think about it. And because this is nineteen ninety one.

590
00:32:16,800 --> 00:32:19,320
Speaker 2: The best measurement that we can put it in is

591
00:32:20,120 --> 00:32:24,920
Speaker 2: SMU's standard mall units. So if you had gone to

592
00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:27,720
Speaker 2: Rivergate Mall in nineteen ninety one and walked around the

593
00:32:27,720 --> 00:32:30,960
Speaker 2: seers there, you would be walking around a Sears that

594
00:32:31,160 --> 00:32:34,640
Speaker 2: was a little less than four acres in size, which

595
00:32:34,680 --> 00:32:37,960
Speaker 2: means that these people were stuck for two years inside

596
00:32:38,200 --> 00:32:53,560
Speaker 2: a facility smaller than a sears as. I'm sorry, are

597
00:32:53,600 --> 00:32:54,560
Speaker 2: they still around at all?

598
00:32:54,640 --> 00:32:56,760
Speaker 1: Is there still seiers or that completely go away? Now?

599
00:32:56,760 --> 00:32:57,400
Speaker 2: I don't think so.

600
00:32:58,120 --> 00:33:04,600
Speaker 1: I got it maybe from front rogue. That doesn't tell

601
00:33:04,640 --> 00:33:08,600
Speaker 1: me much, by the way. No, all right, so life

602
00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:13,920
Speaker 1: inside the biosphere was pretty interesting. They're sealed off again, smaller.

603
00:33:13,560 --> 00:33:16,040
Speaker 2: Than a what sears.

604
00:33:16,160 --> 00:33:21,760
Speaker 1: Oh, and anger management is really paying off. That was

605
00:33:21,840 --> 00:33:23,160
Speaker 1: such a quick twitch.

606
00:33:22,880 --> 00:33:24,400
Speaker 2: It slips out here or there. Good.

607
00:33:25,280 --> 00:33:28,440
Speaker 1: So obviously, you know, all this stuff is very obvious,

608
00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:29,720
Speaker 1: but we just want to kind of drive it home.

609
00:33:29,720 --> 00:33:32,080
Speaker 1: You're not going out for coffee, you're not ordering a pizza,

610
00:33:32,560 --> 00:33:36,280
Speaker 1: You're not there's there's nothing you can bring in. It's

611
00:33:36,440 --> 00:33:39,120
Speaker 1: just you. You can't go have a drink at the bar

612
00:33:39,240 --> 00:33:41,320
Speaker 1: if you want one, like you were in there with

613
00:33:41,360 --> 00:33:44,640
Speaker 1: what you got, what you can grow. There's a lot

614
00:33:44,680 --> 00:33:47,840
Speaker 1: of small animals. There's a lot of insects, there's cockroaches.

615
00:33:48,040 --> 00:33:51,920
Speaker 1: There's a bunch of hippie tippy science types all living

616
00:33:51,960 --> 00:33:54,320
Speaker 1: together and more for more. Actually, they didn't wear those jumps.

617
00:33:54,360 --> 00:33:57,200
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, because they had to work really hard.

618
00:33:57,240 --> 00:34:00,560
Speaker 1: As soon as they left that that press conference the beginning,

619
00:34:00,760 --> 00:34:01,840
Speaker 1: they're like, let me get out.

620
00:34:01,720 --> 00:34:02,240
Speaker 3: Of this stuff.

621
00:34:02,560 --> 00:34:04,040
Speaker 1: Of course it was all glass. So they all saw

622
00:34:04,040 --> 00:34:05,160
Speaker 1: them change clothes.

623
00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:07,920
Speaker 2: Right, but no Chinese food.

624
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:10,239
Speaker 1: They couldn't get ramen delivered. None of that stuff. I

625
00:34:10,280 --> 00:34:12,399
Speaker 1: would not be. All they had was what they had,

626
00:34:12,440 --> 00:34:14,719
Speaker 1: what they could grow, and that the fourteen pounds of

627
00:34:14,719 --> 00:34:16,000
Speaker 1: weed in those duffies.

628
00:34:16,680 --> 00:34:19,560
Speaker 2: And don't forget the tour bus after tour bus of

629
00:34:19,640 --> 00:34:22,719
Speaker 2: gawkers and school kids who paid thirteen dollars to come

630
00:34:22,719 --> 00:34:25,279
Speaker 2: look at them. So, in addition to being sealed off

631
00:34:25,320 --> 00:34:27,839
Speaker 2: from the rest of earth for two years, they were

632
00:34:27,880 --> 00:34:31,120
Speaker 2: exhibits in a human zoo essentially. And there's a there's

633
00:34:31,160 --> 00:34:35,200
Speaker 2: a little shot in the documentary where some guy is

634
00:34:35,280 --> 00:34:37,000
Speaker 2: like trying to take a picture of one of them,

635
00:34:37,080 --> 00:34:42,040
Speaker 2: and he stops and he's like he did that and

636
00:34:42,080 --> 00:34:45,760
Speaker 2: it's documented, and I think he's a jerk.

637
00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:49,480
Speaker 1: So if all this sounds awesome, and it does to

638
00:34:49,600 --> 00:34:52,160
Speaker 1: you in the audience, and you don't know what happens next,

639
00:34:52,200 --> 00:34:55,359
Speaker 1: you're thinking, guys, this is amazing, is ambitious. They're trying

640
00:34:55,360 --> 00:34:57,600
Speaker 1: to do real science. They put all this money into it.

641
00:34:57,600 --> 00:35:00,759
Speaker 1: They got a geodesic dome, they got those duffies full

642
00:35:00,800 --> 00:35:04,600
Speaker 1: of whatever. You're right, it sounds amazing, And if you're

643
00:35:04,600 --> 00:35:09,040
Speaker 1: wondering did it go wrong? It did. There were a

644
00:35:09,120 --> 00:35:12,920
Speaker 1: number of real design flaws in this thing. And I

645
00:35:12,960 --> 00:35:16,440
Speaker 1: don't think it was necessarily because they weren't. I hadn't

646
00:35:16,440 --> 00:35:18,920
Speaker 1: done this kind of thing before. Because they had, besides

647
00:35:18,960 --> 00:35:21,680
Speaker 1: themselves figuring all this out, they had teams and teams

648
00:35:21,719 --> 00:35:24,200
Speaker 1: of you know, legit scientists from all over the world

649
00:35:24,239 --> 00:35:27,600
Speaker 1: like contributing, so everyone was kind of pitching in and

650
00:35:27,600 --> 00:35:30,719
Speaker 1: involving themselves with their expertise. So I don't think it

651
00:35:30,760 --> 00:35:35,120
Speaker 1: was a lack of that. It was just maybe not

652
00:35:35,239 --> 00:35:38,880
Speaker 1: the most thought out thing to begin with, like the

653
00:35:38,920 --> 00:35:41,719
Speaker 1: whole idea that you could I mean, the biggest problem

654
00:35:41,800 --> 00:35:43,400
Speaker 1: was it couldn't carry out the science they wanted to

655
00:35:43,480 --> 00:35:47,400
Speaker 1: because Earth doesn't have five biomes in a three acre space.

656
00:35:48,320 --> 00:35:49,920
Speaker 1: They didn't seal them off from each other. Now, and

657
00:35:50,040 --> 00:35:52,480
Speaker 1: you go and visit their doors. Between all these they

658
00:35:52,480 --> 00:35:55,000
Speaker 1: built walls and stuff, and you go from the rainforest

659
00:35:55,000 --> 00:35:57,000
Speaker 1: and shut the door behind you and you go into

660
00:35:57,040 --> 00:35:59,400
Speaker 1: the desert. And that, you know, kind of works in

661
00:35:59,440 --> 00:36:01,520
Speaker 1: a way. When it's all right next to each other.

662
00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:04,040
Speaker 1: It's not natural and nothing is going to work. And

663
00:36:04,080 --> 00:36:05,560
Speaker 1: they just didn't think of that, I guess.

664
00:36:05,640 --> 00:36:08,760
Speaker 2: So pretty much any like actual science they were trying

665
00:36:08,760 --> 00:36:11,719
Speaker 2: to do as far as BIOSPHERICX went, was moot from

666
00:36:11,760 --> 00:36:15,000
Speaker 2: the beginning, because again they didn't seal the biomes off

667
00:36:15,040 --> 00:36:19,000
Speaker 2: from one another. You had an Amazon rainforest thirty feet

668
00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:22,200
Speaker 2: away from a coastal fog, right And as a result,

669
00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:25,879
Speaker 2: the desert actually didn't stay desert because the more rain

670
00:36:25,960 --> 00:36:30,360
Speaker 2: you made in the jungle to increase plant production and

671
00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:33,759
Speaker 2: then you know, boost oxygen, it meant more fog roll

672
00:36:33,800 --> 00:36:36,560
Speaker 2: than every day in the desert, and so the cacti

673
00:36:36,640 --> 00:36:39,000
Speaker 2: got choked off by all the moisture and it turned

674
00:36:39,040 --> 00:36:42,200
Speaker 2: into like scrub land. And Linda Lee came in at

675
00:36:42,200 --> 00:36:43,759
Speaker 2: one point, I was like, what the hell.

676
00:36:47,440 --> 00:36:50,080
Speaker 1: This place is very moist by the way, if you

677
00:36:50,120 --> 00:36:52,840
Speaker 1: go to visit. I know that word triggers some people.

678
00:36:52,880 --> 00:36:57,040
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, No, the way to describe it it is moist,

679
00:36:59,239 --> 00:37:05,239
Speaker 1: not cool, moist, moist moist moist, moist, so moist, like

680
00:37:05,280 --> 00:37:07,200
Speaker 1: you've been to greenhouses and stuff that kind of moisture.

681
00:37:07,640 --> 00:37:10,400
Speaker 1: Amplify this because there's waterfalls and jungles and stuff.

682
00:37:11,120 --> 00:37:11,680
Speaker 2: So moist.

683
00:37:13,760 --> 00:37:17,360
Speaker 1: Sorry. What else happened? There was a massive influx of

684
00:37:17,480 --> 00:37:21,040
Speaker 1: nutrients from that mangrove marsh that I love, right into

685
00:37:21,080 --> 00:37:23,760
Speaker 1: the ocean, such that you know, there's these great shots

686
00:37:23,760 --> 00:37:25,680
Speaker 1: at the beginning of them, like scuba diving next to

687
00:37:25,719 --> 00:37:29,239
Speaker 1: the reef, like this is amazing, and you know, a

688
00:37:29,360 --> 00:37:32,560
Speaker 1: year later, it's just so choked with algae because it's

689
00:37:32,600 --> 00:37:36,120
Speaker 1: so nutrient dense that scuba diving dried up pretty quickly.

690
00:37:36,360 --> 00:37:40,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, it turned into a green, slimy ocean. And we

691
00:37:40,280 --> 00:37:42,520
Speaker 2: keep using the word nutrients, but you could also replace

692
00:37:42,560 --> 00:37:47,359
Speaker 2: that with poop, right, that's true. And then the trees, hmm,

693
00:37:47,520 --> 00:37:50,720
Speaker 2: the tree it's just weird. So they grew really really tall,

694
00:37:50,880 --> 00:37:53,319
Speaker 2: but they were too weak to stand up under their

695
00:37:53,360 --> 00:37:57,279
Speaker 2: own power, their own structure. And they figured out that

696
00:37:57,280 --> 00:38:00,480
Speaker 2: that was because there was no wind inside of the bikeiosphere.

697
00:38:00,719 --> 00:38:04,160
Speaker 2: Outside on biosphere one, the wind pushes on trees and

698
00:38:04,200 --> 00:38:07,600
Speaker 2: in response, trees grow something called stress wood, which gives

699
00:38:07,640 --> 00:38:12,239
Speaker 2: it a lot of structure. The trees inside a biosphere too,

700
00:38:12,440 --> 00:38:15,080
Speaker 2: didn't have any winds, so they didn't grow that stress wood,

701
00:38:15,239 --> 00:38:18,360
Speaker 2: which meant they had to be lashed to the inside

702
00:38:18,760 --> 00:38:22,440
Speaker 2: of the geodesic dome eighty feet up like a giant

703
00:38:22,920 --> 00:38:26,880
Speaker 2: piece of cooked asparagus. Just sad to see.

704
00:38:28,239 --> 00:38:29,840
Speaker 1: I didn't know about this part, and in fact, I

705
00:38:29,840 --> 00:38:32,320
Speaker 1: went out when I went in January, I had purposely,

706
00:38:32,920 --> 00:38:36,600
Speaker 1: I think I watched the documentary, but I purposely didn't

707
00:38:36,600 --> 00:38:38,200
Speaker 1: look at the stuff you put together because I just

708
00:38:38,280 --> 00:38:40,759
Speaker 1: kind of wanted to experience it for the first time.

709
00:38:40,800 --> 00:38:43,239
Speaker 1: But on the plane, Josh was like, you know, I

710
00:38:43,280 --> 00:38:45,399
Speaker 1: heard that they lashed these trees to the tube because

711
00:38:45,400 --> 00:38:47,800
Speaker 1: they're so weak, and he was really kind of not obsessed,

712
00:38:47,840 --> 00:38:51,359
Speaker 1: but you were really sort of into this idea, like

713
00:38:50,880 --> 00:38:54,399
Speaker 1: a like an encyclopedia Brown Sleuth. And we got there

714
00:38:54,560 --> 00:38:58,040
Speaker 1: and Josh was so funny. He was like, look, look

715
00:38:58,200 --> 00:39:00,680
Speaker 1: they're still lashed. And he looked up there and sure enough,

716
00:39:00,719 --> 00:39:03,440
Speaker 1: there's like you know, vinyl chord tying these you know,

717
00:39:03,520 --> 00:39:07,360
Speaker 1: what is it again, Yeah, it's week Dresa, and you

718
00:39:07,400 --> 00:39:08,760
Speaker 1: were just you were so discussed.

719
00:39:08,840 --> 00:39:09,760
Speaker 2: I cracked the case.

720
00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:14,440
Speaker 1: Uh so we mentioned they start out with thirty one

721
00:39:14,480 --> 00:39:17,640
Speaker 1: hundred species of plants and animals forty percent when extinct,

722
00:39:18,320 --> 00:39:20,840
Speaker 1: which I know that sounds like a lot, but that

723
00:39:20,920 --> 00:39:22,600
Speaker 1: was actually better than they thought they were gonna do.

724
00:39:22,680 --> 00:39:25,480
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, let me put that in a background extinction

725
00:39:25,560 --> 00:39:28,960
Speaker 2: rate real quick though, Right, according to background extinction rates,

726
00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:32,200
Speaker 2: they should have expected to lose point zero five to

727
00:39:32,200 --> 00:39:34,839
Speaker 2: one to two species out of thirty eight hundred over

728
00:39:34,880 --> 00:39:38,920
Speaker 2: two years. They lost one five hundred and twenty species

729
00:39:39,200 --> 00:39:40,000
Speaker 2: over two years.

730
00:39:40,040 --> 00:39:42,240
Speaker 1: That's on biosphere one, is what you would expect.

731
00:39:42,360 --> 00:39:45,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, yeah, but like Chuck said, it was still

732
00:39:45,760 --> 00:39:49,919
Speaker 2: better than what they predicted, which was seventy percent extinction rate.

733
00:39:50,239 --> 00:39:53,320
Speaker 2: So forty percent is like a triumph compared to that.

734
00:39:53,320 --> 00:39:57,160
Speaker 1: That's true. And here's the weird thing that happened in

735
00:39:57,200 --> 00:40:00,520
Speaker 1: Biosphere two was that some of the things back, many

736
00:40:00,600 --> 00:40:03,319
Speaker 1: of the things ended up really really thriving, were things

737
00:40:03,360 --> 00:40:06,760
Speaker 1: that they didn't even bring in and intend to thrive.

738
00:40:07,880 --> 00:40:11,360
Speaker 1: For instance, morning glory vines. They can be lovely, We

739
00:40:11,440 --> 00:40:15,759
Speaker 1: all love them. They grew so extensively. They basically, and

740
00:40:15,800 --> 00:40:17,800
Speaker 1: this will become a recurring theme, is they had to

741
00:40:17,840 --> 00:40:20,959
Speaker 1: spend so much of their time doing other stuff rather

742
00:40:21,000 --> 00:40:23,279
Speaker 1: than what each of them had their own little expertise in.

743
00:40:24,160 --> 00:40:26,560
Speaker 1: They didn't get to do the things that they had expertise.

744
00:40:26,600 --> 00:40:28,799
Speaker 1: And so they're out there, as we will see later,

745
00:40:29,120 --> 00:40:32,760
Speaker 1: farming all day, weeding all day, chopping this morning glory vine.

746
00:40:33,080 --> 00:40:35,000
Speaker 1: And that's going to build resentment when you can't do

747
00:40:35,080 --> 00:40:36,920
Speaker 1: your little chrone projects.

748
00:40:37,440 --> 00:40:40,400
Speaker 2: Or Linda Lee didn't even get to take the stuffing

749
00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:42,200
Speaker 2: out of her La Gear shoe box.

750
00:40:42,440 --> 00:40:46,280
Speaker 1: She didn't because he's chopping back those morning glory vine.

751
00:40:46,920 --> 00:40:50,800
Speaker 2: Right. There was a species of ant called the crazy

752
00:40:50,840 --> 00:40:54,279
Speaker 2: ant that took over the place. It actually out competed

753
00:40:54,320 --> 00:40:58,319
Speaker 2: the eleven species of ants that were introduced purposely. No

754
00:40:58,360 --> 00:41:00,000
Speaker 2: one knows how the crazy ant got.

755
00:40:59,880 --> 00:41:02,080
Speaker 1: In, but not show probably probably.

756
00:41:02,239 --> 00:41:05,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, it took over though, and they're still there today.

757
00:41:05,280 --> 00:41:07,840
Speaker 2: When we were sitting there looking out over the ocean,

758
00:41:08,360 --> 00:41:10,520
Speaker 2: kind of holding on this railing, our hands were just

759
00:41:10,560 --> 00:41:13,480
Speaker 2: covered and unfortunately don't bite or anything, but we were like,

760
00:41:13,520 --> 00:41:15,920
Speaker 2: oh my god, we've heard about you guys. Yeah, I

761
00:41:15,960 --> 00:41:19,440
Speaker 2: can't believe if we were a little starstruck. Actually it

762
00:41:19,520 --> 00:41:20,200
Speaker 2: was pretty neat.

763
00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:22,719
Speaker 1: It made up for the last trees I think for sure,

764
00:41:22,719 --> 00:41:26,080
Speaker 1: a little bit all. I mean not all, but most

765
00:41:26,080 --> 00:41:28,640
Speaker 1: of the pollinating things they brought in to pollinate these

766
00:41:28,640 --> 00:41:31,759
Speaker 1: specific plants died off, so they ended up having to

767
00:41:31,880 --> 00:41:35,240
Speaker 1: hand pollinate crops, which I don't know why that sounds

768
00:41:35,280 --> 00:41:39,200
Speaker 1: dirty to me, but that's what they did. And to

769
00:41:39,280 --> 00:41:41,719
Speaker 1: top it all off, well I'm not gonna talk about

770
00:41:41,760 --> 00:41:42,320
Speaker 1: the bush babies.

771
00:41:42,320 --> 00:41:43,080
Speaker 2: You talk about they're.

772
00:41:42,920 --> 00:41:44,600
Speaker 1: Gonna make me do this, I can't do it.

773
00:41:46,080 --> 00:41:51,000
Speaker 2: So remember the bush baby's, the super super cute little primates. Well,

774
00:41:51,040 --> 00:41:54,640
Speaker 2: one of them got into a wiring panel and was electrocuting,

775
00:41:55,880 --> 00:41:58,239
Speaker 2: which is just that's got to be a bummer day

776
00:41:58,239 --> 00:42:01,600
Speaker 2: in biosphere too, you know, Like, I'm sure you could

777
00:42:01,640 --> 00:42:03,480
Speaker 2: smell it throughout the whole facility.

778
00:42:04,360 --> 00:42:09,160
Speaker 1: I bet they're like, hmm, I'll bet they ate hell

779
00:42:09,160 --> 00:42:10,000
Speaker 1: out of that bush baby.

780
00:42:10,360 --> 00:42:14,920
Speaker 2: Right, They did make lemonades out of lemons, though. For example,

781
00:42:14,960 --> 00:42:19,440
Speaker 2: they found that salamanders played a disproportionate role in trapping

782
00:42:19,520 --> 00:42:22,360
Speaker 2: carbon and soil because it eats a lot of the

783
00:42:22,520 --> 00:42:27,680
Speaker 2: leaf eating insects that released the carbon. They hadn't introduced salamanders.

784
00:42:27,680 --> 00:42:29,720
Speaker 2: But they made the observation all the same.

785
00:42:31,160 --> 00:42:34,400
Speaker 1: So that's all well, and good. Things aren't going great.

786
00:42:34,560 --> 00:42:38,000
Speaker 1: There's a domino effect happening in nature because things aren't,

787
00:42:38,040 --> 00:42:40,480
Speaker 1: you know, helping each other out. S yenergy wasn't happening,

788
00:42:40,560 --> 00:42:44,800
Speaker 1: you guys. But there were two really big giant hurdles

789
00:42:44,920 --> 00:42:49,640
Speaker 1: that would affect the entire outcome of this experiment. Both

790
00:42:49,880 --> 00:42:53,000
Speaker 1: things they didn't count on. Both things are very important.

791
00:42:53,360 --> 00:42:54,760
Speaker 1: And they are eating and breathing.

792
00:42:57,000 --> 00:43:00,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, going pretty good.

793
00:43:01,120 --> 00:43:02,000
Speaker 1: Still going pretty.

794
00:43:01,760 --> 00:43:08,399
Speaker 2: Good, I think so, you guys, still enjoying ourself. Well,

795
00:43:08,440 --> 00:43:10,840
Speaker 2: if I'm not mistaken, Chuck just set us up with

796
00:43:10,880 --> 00:43:14,520
Speaker 2: a cliffhanger, which means we're gonna take one more message break.

797
00:43:14,600 --> 00:43:30,440
Speaker 5: That's right, stuffish, softy jawsh shop, soft.

798
00:43:29,600 --> 00:43:39,040
Speaker 1: Your shal We're back, everybody, Hi, Nashville. All right, never

799
00:43:39,120 --> 00:43:51,839
Speaker 1: gets old. All right, We're gonna take these one in time.

800
00:43:51,960 --> 00:43:56,040
Speaker 1: Hunger number one. They initially calculated that we're gonna live

801
00:43:56,080 --> 00:43:58,839
Speaker 1: on about twenty five hundred calories a day. Not too bad.

802
00:43:59,560 --> 00:44:02,520
Speaker 1: They never got very close to that. They had to

803
00:44:02,600 --> 00:44:05,359
Speaker 1: farm their own food, like we said. They had farm

804
00:44:05,440 --> 00:44:08,200
Speaker 1: some on the ranch in New Mexico, like sort of

805
00:44:08,239 --> 00:44:11,200
Speaker 1: like we farm. Actually, there may be some lechit farmers here,

806
00:44:11,640 --> 00:44:16,120
Speaker 1: God bless you, that's right. But like I farm in

807
00:44:16,160 --> 00:44:19,239
Speaker 1: my backyard a little bit. I farm. Yeah, this is

808
00:44:19,239 --> 00:44:21,320
Speaker 1: a kind of farming they did. They weren't like professional farmers,

809
00:44:21,320 --> 00:44:23,640
Speaker 1: so they did an okay job growing stuff.

810
00:44:23,360 --> 00:44:26,439
Speaker 2: Well in true synergy and fashion. None of them had

811
00:44:26,480 --> 00:44:29,960
Speaker 2: any experience with subsistence farming, and I guess they hadn't

812
00:44:30,000 --> 00:44:32,200
Speaker 2: thought that through when they sealed themselves off for two

813
00:44:32,280 --> 00:44:34,560
Speaker 2: years tried to grow their own crops.

814
00:44:35,440 --> 00:44:37,680
Speaker 1: At first they got about eighteen hundred calories a day,

815
00:44:38,320 --> 00:44:41,840
Speaker 1: not terrible, you're pretty hungry, but you're living. That rose

816
00:44:41,880 --> 00:44:43,839
Speaker 1: to about two thousand at one point when the farm

817
00:44:43,920 --> 00:44:47,160
Speaker 1: was going pretty good. Again, you're fine, you're probably hungry

818
00:44:47,200 --> 00:44:51,000
Speaker 1: on two thousand galleries. But again, these people are working really,

819
00:44:51,000 --> 00:44:53,360
Speaker 1: really hard every day, so they're burning through those calories

820
00:44:53,719 --> 00:44:57,440
Speaker 1: very very quickly. And again they have to spend all

821
00:44:57,440 --> 00:44:59,440
Speaker 1: their time now weeding and farming and doing all these

822
00:44:59,480 --> 00:45:02,560
Speaker 1: things that they thought that Linda Lee was probably primarily doing.

823
00:45:03,080 --> 00:45:05,200
Speaker 1: And they're not able to run their experiment. So again

824
00:45:05,320 --> 00:45:07,239
Speaker 1: tension is increasing as they go.

825
00:45:07,560 --> 00:45:11,120
Speaker 2: But doctor Walford was like, yes, yeah, that God because

826
00:45:11,160 --> 00:45:15,120
Speaker 2: he had a captive sample for two years to study

827
00:45:15,200 --> 00:45:18,880
Speaker 2: his chron diet, and he actually was vindicated. Everybody dropped

828
00:45:18,880 --> 00:45:21,560
Speaker 2: a shocking amount of weight. I think the average was

829
00:45:21,880 --> 00:45:25,080
Speaker 2: twenty one percent of their body weight for men, fourteen

830
00:45:25,120 --> 00:45:30,160
Speaker 2: percent for the women. And the thing is, their blood

831
00:45:30,200 --> 00:45:33,680
Speaker 2: markers started to show improvement, like their cholesterol levels were

832
00:45:33,719 --> 00:45:36,560
Speaker 2: actually good, and their weight finally stabilized, and they actually

833
00:45:36,600 --> 00:45:40,840
Speaker 2: got to this weird level of healthy from that calorie

834
00:45:40,880 --> 00:45:45,200
Speaker 2: restricted optimal nutrition diet. And Walford was he was pretty

835
00:45:45,200 --> 00:45:45,799
Speaker 2: happy about that.

836
00:45:45,920 --> 00:45:51,040
Speaker 1: He's like, isn't as great? Everyone screw you, Walford. They

837
00:45:51,040 --> 00:45:53,080
Speaker 1: did the cartoon thing where they look he's like taking

838
00:45:53,120 --> 00:45:54,560
Speaker 1: a nap and they look at him and he's like

839
00:45:54,600 --> 00:45:57,040
Speaker 1: a he turns into a roasted turkey in his bed.

840
00:46:01,080 --> 00:46:03,600
Speaker 1: The point is, everyone they were hungry all the time.

841
00:46:03,719 --> 00:46:08,040
Speaker 1: They were hungry. They lost the enzymes that they formerly

842
00:46:08,080 --> 00:46:10,160
Speaker 1: had to digest meat. They didn't have a lot of

843
00:46:10,160 --> 00:46:12,560
Speaker 1: meat to begin with, but they certainly couldn't digest it

844
00:46:12,560 --> 00:46:16,960
Speaker 1: anymore in their guts. They ate peanut shells just you know,

845
00:46:17,080 --> 00:46:19,080
Speaker 1: like let's just just eat that whole peanut. Weren't even

846
00:46:19,080 --> 00:46:22,640
Speaker 1: showing these things to get more calories. They ate things

847
00:46:22,680 --> 00:46:26,319
Speaker 1: that grew. They ate tons of sweet potatoes because they

848
00:46:26,320 --> 00:46:31,319
Speaker 1: grew sweet potatoes pretty successfully, so their skin turned to orange. Yeah,

849
00:46:31,360 --> 00:46:34,440
Speaker 1: they ate ut beats. They grew a lot of beats.

850
00:46:34,760 --> 00:46:36,720
Speaker 1: They grew a lot of bananas. You know what happens

851
00:46:36,760 --> 00:46:40,759
Speaker 1: to beats the next day in the bathroom. So can

852
00:46:40,800 --> 00:46:43,760
Speaker 1: you imagine these people are all subsisting. They've got orange skin.

853
00:46:44,239 --> 00:46:48,359
Speaker 1: Their bathrooms look like a crime scene, and they are

854
00:46:48,400 --> 00:46:52,239
Speaker 1: eating so many bananas. They made banana wine, and in

855
00:46:52,280 --> 00:46:55,360
Speaker 1: the documentary they talk about how awful it tasted and

856
00:46:55,400 --> 00:46:56,759
Speaker 1: how quickly they drank it.

857
00:46:59,200 --> 00:47:01,960
Speaker 2: But I just just a second, like, let's all get

858
00:47:02,000 --> 00:47:05,120
Speaker 2: in the mindset of living for two years on sweet

859
00:47:05,200 --> 00:47:10,600
Speaker 2: potatoes and beats. That is cruel. Yeah, that's like somebody

860
00:47:10,680 --> 00:47:12,440
Speaker 2: saying moist over and over each.

861
00:47:12,360 --> 00:47:15,240
Speaker 1: What about the coffee? Though they thought of coffee ahead.

862
00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:16,719
Speaker 2: Of time, This is where I would have signed out.

863
00:47:16,719 --> 00:47:19,680
Speaker 2: I would been like missions over for me. They were planning.

864
00:47:19,800 --> 00:47:22,960
Speaker 2: They actually did grow coffee upland in the rainforest, but

865
00:47:23,400 --> 00:47:26,360
Speaker 2: they miscalculated, and it turns out they could put together

866
00:47:26,480 --> 00:47:30,160
Speaker 2: one cup of coffee every two weeks, which meant everybody

867
00:47:30,200 --> 00:47:33,280
Speaker 2: got to six cups over the entire two years.

868
00:47:33,640 --> 00:47:36,479
Speaker 1: Yeah, not one cup each, Like that's even bad. Yeah,

869
00:47:36,520 --> 00:47:39,200
Speaker 1: they got three cups of coffee per year each.

870
00:47:39,480 --> 00:47:42,080
Speaker 2: It took four months to make a pizza because they

871
00:47:42,080 --> 00:47:45,520
Speaker 2: had to start by growing the wheat. They harvested their

872
00:47:45,560 --> 00:47:48,600
Speaker 2: salt from the ocean, and then their only source of

873
00:47:48,640 --> 00:47:56,600
Speaker 2: milk came from three goats stardust division and milky way okay, beats,

874
00:47:56,680 --> 00:48:01,960
Speaker 2: sweet potatoes and goat milk. Yeah, yeah, I don't understand

875
00:48:01,960 --> 00:48:04,840
Speaker 2: why you guys aren't more grossed out by that. Do

876
00:48:04,880 --> 00:48:06,800
Speaker 2: you guys eat a lot of beets and sweet potatoes

877
00:48:06,800 --> 00:48:07,760
Speaker 2: and go milk together.

878
00:48:07,960 --> 00:48:09,440
Speaker 1: I mean, like they're.

879
00:48:09,280 --> 00:48:13,239
Speaker 2: Fine on their own and you know, normal amounts, but

880
00:48:13,320 --> 00:48:15,240
Speaker 2: you put them all together for two years.

881
00:48:15,560 --> 00:48:19,279
Speaker 1: Guys, this is Nashville. They're back to the land. They're

882
00:48:19,360 --> 00:48:20,320
Speaker 1: real American.

883
00:48:20,480 --> 00:48:22,719
Speaker 2: Hey, I'm a real American. I can get back to

884
00:48:22,760 --> 00:48:24,760
Speaker 2: the land, but I don't want to live on sweet

885
00:48:24,800 --> 00:48:27,879
Speaker 2: potatoes and beats and goats milk for two years. Can

886
00:48:27,920 --> 00:48:29,000
Speaker 2: we not all agree on that?

887
00:48:29,080 --> 00:48:29,479
Speaker 1: All right?

888
00:48:30,040 --> 00:48:34,520
Speaker 2: Okay, thank you? We can finally move on from that part.

889
00:48:34,920 --> 00:48:39,799
Speaker 1: Whatever socialist fascist communists, because those are all the same thing.

890
00:48:42,400 --> 00:48:46,120
Speaker 1: I wasn't gonna get political. Sorry, hangriness is a real

891
00:48:46,440 --> 00:48:50,719
Speaker 1: situation here though, like it became a real problem. The

892
00:48:50,760 --> 00:48:54,080
Speaker 1: group starts to divide a little bit. There is one

893
00:48:54,120 --> 00:48:56,480
Speaker 1: faction because you know, things aren't going well. So there's

894
00:48:56,480 --> 00:49:00,480
Speaker 1: one faction that's still very much following Becausejohn Allen was

895
00:49:00,520 --> 00:49:02,440
Speaker 1: kind of running the show from the outside. They were

896
00:49:02,440 --> 00:49:05,880
Speaker 1: following John Allen's word still and sort of John Allen Knight's.

897
00:49:06,120 --> 00:49:07,960
Speaker 1: And then there was another faction that we're like, I

898
00:49:07,960 --> 00:49:11,319
Speaker 1: don't think we should listen to this guy anymore, Like

899
00:49:11,480 --> 00:49:14,640
Speaker 1: he's not even in here, and they went, he's right

900
00:49:14,680 --> 00:49:16,520
Speaker 1: on the other side of the glass. He can now

901
00:49:16,600 --> 00:49:18,440
Speaker 1: looked in right outside the glass. John Allen's like I

902
00:49:18,440 --> 00:49:22,400
Speaker 1: had a burrito and was like, oh me. So like

903
00:49:22,480 --> 00:49:26,160
Speaker 1: a real division grew within the ranks, and it got

904
00:49:26,239 --> 00:49:28,480
Speaker 1: kind of ugly interpersonally between them.

905
00:49:28,600 --> 00:49:32,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, Abigail Allen said she was spit at twice, and

906
00:49:32,920 --> 00:49:34,920
Speaker 2: Roy Walford later said, that's that's.

907
00:49:34,760 --> 00:49:41,359
Speaker 1: How I thought it's a new one too.

908
00:49:41,800 --> 00:49:48,560
Speaker 2: That's good, thank you, thank you man well man. Poor Roy.

909
00:49:48,880 --> 00:49:52,400
Speaker 1: Things got worse for him by the way. Game Night

910
00:49:52,480 --> 00:49:55,080
Speaker 1: dried up pretty quickly, though. Is the upshot of all that?

911
00:49:55,160 --> 00:49:55,560
Speaker 2: For sure?

912
00:49:55,640 --> 00:49:56,920
Speaker 1: I'm sorry you're the upshot guy.

913
00:49:57,360 --> 00:49:58,919
Speaker 2: That's okay, you can use it once in a while.

914
00:49:59,040 --> 00:50:01,759
Speaker 1: I thank you. I appreciate that the anger management is

915
00:50:01,800 --> 00:50:07,719
Speaker 1: really working. So that's the hungriness. Number two is the

916
00:50:07,760 --> 00:50:08,520
Speaker 1: breathing trouble.

917
00:50:08,719 --> 00:50:12,520
Speaker 2: Yes. So about a year I guess into the mission,

918
00:50:12,560 --> 00:50:15,600
Speaker 2: they started to notice that their oxygen levels were going down,

919
00:50:16,040 --> 00:50:19,399
Speaker 2: their CO two levels were going up, and either one

920
00:50:19,440 --> 00:50:21,879
Speaker 2: of those is bad, but them working in conjunction, that's

921
00:50:21,960 --> 00:50:26,319
Speaker 2: really not good. And it turned out that the atmosphere

922
00:50:26,400 --> 00:50:30,600
Speaker 2: grew to about a level somewhere around Cousco Peru, which

923
00:50:30,640 --> 00:50:33,080
Speaker 2: is way up in the andes An. In true synergy

924
00:50:33,120 --> 00:50:35,520
Speaker 2: and fashion, none of them had any experience living in

925
00:50:35,520 --> 00:50:39,040
Speaker 2: Cusco Peru, so they were suffering like big time. They

926
00:50:39,080 --> 00:50:42,440
Speaker 2: reported having to take breaks walking up the one flight

927
00:50:42,480 --> 00:50:46,359
Speaker 2: of stairs. They were hurting for sure. And they looked

928
00:50:46,360 --> 00:50:49,400
Speaker 2: around and they figured out that at least part of

929
00:50:49,400 --> 00:50:52,560
Speaker 2: the problem was that the soil was about five times

930
00:50:52,680 --> 00:50:55,480
Speaker 2: richer than you'd find out on biosphere one, which meant

931
00:50:55,480 --> 00:50:58,480
Speaker 2: there were tons of little microbes that were sucking up

932
00:50:58,520 --> 00:51:01,560
Speaker 2: the oxygen as they did their thing and releasing a

933
00:51:01,600 --> 00:51:03,959
Speaker 2: lot of CO two. That was problem one.

934
00:51:04,160 --> 00:51:06,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that one's a little frustrating because you know,

935
00:51:06,719 --> 00:51:09,040
Speaker 1: at the beginning, they're like, we really need to grow stuff,

936
00:51:09,080 --> 00:51:11,359
Speaker 1: so let's get the best soil and bring that stuff in.

937
00:51:11,760 --> 00:51:13,640
Speaker 1: And no one ever was like, but wait a minute,

938
00:51:13,960 --> 00:51:16,200
Speaker 1: that's not how it is, like, we should bring in

939
00:51:16,320 --> 00:51:19,680
Speaker 1: realistic soil. Great band name, by the way.

940
00:51:20,160 --> 00:51:21,040
Speaker 2: Realistic soil.

941
00:51:21,200 --> 00:51:24,360
Speaker 1: Sure, I don't know, No, I'm not sure. Yeah, this

942
00:51:24,480 --> 00:51:27,239
Speaker 1: is Nashville, they know. Yeah, okay, oh you know what,

943
00:51:27,320 --> 00:51:29,320
Speaker 1: that's my band with a nine other guys.

944
00:51:30,200 --> 00:51:32,080
Speaker 2: Oh that's funny you say that because I had thought

945
00:51:32,120 --> 00:51:34,200
Speaker 2: of when the dimes a dozens.

946
00:51:35,400 --> 00:51:36,680
Speaker 1: Oh that's the name of our band.

947
00:51:36,760 --> 00:51:38,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, you thought of that.

948
00:51:38,000 --> 00:51:42,440
Speaker 1: When I was saying that, Wow, oh wait just now, no, no, no, earlier.

949
00:51:42,480 --> 00:51:44,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was gonna say, it's like an hour ago.

950
00:51:44,680 --> 00:51:47,840
Speaker 1: I just still the way your brain works always surprises me.

951
00:51:47,880 --> 00:51:50,560
Speaker 1: Thanks man for all these years. Is being the dime

952
00:51:50,600 --> 00:51:53,600
Speaker 1: a Dozens? Yeah, that's probably a real band here.

953
00:51:54,160 --> 00:51:56,759
Speaker 2: Probably they're backstage right now.

954
00:51:59,080 --> 00:52:02,480
Speaker 1: So the soil, Yes, we did this soil. So normally

955
00:52:02,600 --> 00:52:05,640
Speaker 1: the plant life and biosphere two would have sort of

956
00:52:05,680 --> 00:52:07,839
Speaker 1: reckoned with this and they would have worked over time.

957
00:52:08,200 --> 00:52:11,040
Speaker 1: They would have stepped up and sucked that CO two

958
00:52:11,040 --> 00:52:14,040
Speaker 1: out of the air and burped up oxygen and everyone

959
00:52:14,160 --> 00:52:17,280
Speaker 1: it would have been tenable at least, but that wasn't happening.

960
00:52:17,400 --> 00:52:20,840
Speaker 1: The plants were working hard and the levels just weren't changing,

961
00:52:21,120 --> 00:52:22,680
Speaker 1: and they could not figure out why.

962
00:52:22,880 --> 00:52:25,240
Speaker 2: No, because there's a lot of CO two that should

963
00:52:25,239 --> 00:52:27,600
Speaker 2: have been in the atmosphere that was mysteriously missing. So

964
00:52:27,640 --> 00:52:29,920
Speaker 2: they looked around again, they said, what is going on?

965
00:52:30,440 --> 00:52:34,720
Speaker 2: And they discovered that concrete is an excellent carbon sink.

966
00:52:35,160 --> 00:52:37,160
Speaker 2: It just sucks it right out of the air faster

967
00:52:37,280 --> 00:52:40,800
Speaker 2: than plants, and Biosphere two happened to have one hundred

968
00:52:40,800 --> 00:52:44,040
Speaker 2: and ten thousand square feet of exposed concrete, and that

969
00:52:44,120 --> 00:52:47,200
Speaker 2: concrete was out competing the plants for that CO two,

970
00:52:47,600 --> 00:52:50,319
Speaker 2: So the plants couldn't pump out oxygen. And yet the

971
00:52:50,360 --> 00:52:52,560
Speaker 2: CO two levels were still higher than they should be,

972
00:52:52,680 --> 00:52:55,239
Speaker 2: which meant the biospheres were in trouble, and it wasn't

973
00:52:55,280 --> 00:52:57,879
Speaker 2: immediately apparent what they should do about the whole thing.

974
00:52:58,120 --> 00:53:00,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, they weren't sure. I mean, they were basically two decisions.

975
00:53:00,600 --> 00:53:03,560
Speaker 1: They were like, well, listen, we can sort of blow

976
00:53:03,640 --> 00:53:06,040
Speaker 1: the spirit of this whole thing, and we can bring

977
00:53:06,080 --> 00:53:08,919
Speaker 1: in oxygen and pump in oxygen and stay in here

978
00:53:10,040 --> 00:53:12,920
Speaker 1: and probably risk the scorn of the media and the

979
00:53:12,960 --> 00:53:15,600
Speaker 1: scientific community and stuff like that render most of the

980
00:53:15,600 --> 00:53:18,319
Speaker 1: science mood, or we can leave, and they didn't want

981
00:53:18,360 --> 00:53:21,400
Speaker 1: to leave. So in the end they decided they're going

982
00:53:21,440 --> 00:53:22,320
Speaker 1: to bring in oxygen.

983
00:53:22,600 --> 00:53:26,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they did. It saved the day. Initially, when

984
00:53:26,440 --> 00:53:29,920
Speaker 2: the biosphere project got underway, the media was super duper

985
00:53:30,000 --> 00:53:33,080
Speaker 2: on board. Somebody actually wrote that it was the greatest

986
00:53:33,080 --> 00:53:37,320
Speaker 2: scientific endeavor since humans landed on the Moon. It's a

987
00:53:37,360 --> 00:53:40,319
Speaker 2: pretty amazing thing to call it right. Just a few

988
00:53:40,400 --> 00:53:43,560
Speaker 2: years later, Time magazine named it as one of its

989
00:53:43,719 --> 00:53:49,440
Speaker 2: hundred worst ideas of the twentieth century, alongside the Titanic

990
00:53:49,920 --> 00:53:55,760
Speaker 2: DDT and sailing the exon Valdi's into Prince William sound Man.

991
00:53:56,120 --> 00:53:56,880
Speaker 2: Bad stuff.

992
00:53:57,320 --> 00:54:00,759
Speaker 1: They really turned on them in the press. Not only

993
00:54:00,800 --> 00:54:03,360
Speaker 1: that reports start to come out of some other things.

994
00:54:04,320 --> 00:54:06,920
Speaker 1: They had a CO two scrubber in there to help

995
00:54:06,960 --> 00:54:10,279
Speaker 1: out that they didn't tell anyone about it. Obviously wasn't

996
00:54:10,360 --> 00:54:12,400
Speaker 1: enough to and that was kind of how they talk

997
00:54:12,480 --> 00:54:14,480
Speaker 1: about it later, was like it wasn't even enough to

998
00:54:14,480 --> 00:54:16,880
Speaker 1: solve our problem. So it's not like we were cheating

999
00:54:17,000 --> 00:54:19,600
Speaker 1: that much, just a little bit. We were still in

1000
00:54:19,680 --> 00:54:21,719
Speaker 1: really bad shape, if that makes you feel any better.

1001
00:54:22,000 --> 00:54:23,840
Speaker 1: But they didn't tell anyone, They didn't disclose this, so

1002
00:54:23,920 --> 00:54:26,879
Speaker 1: that was a problem. Those two duffies that she brought

1003
00:54:26,920 --> 00:54:29,279
Speaker 1: back in from the hospital, those came back up put

1004
00:54:29,280 --> 00:54:31,120
Speaker 1: in the press. They were like, what was in those duffies?

1005
00:54:31,360 --> 00:54:33,080
Speaker 1: We had the camera footage. You left with nothing, you

1006
00:54:33,120 --> 00:54:35,160
Speaker 1: came back with these two big duffies. And she was like,

1007
00:54:35,280 --> 00:54:37,759
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm not really sure whether that was

1008
00:54:38,960 --> 00:54:40,560
Speaker 1: It's cool. Man, like, don't be.

1009
00:54:40,520 --> 00:54:42,960
Speaker 2: A drag man. You sold that. I was like, oh,

1010
00:54:42,960 --> 00:54:44,080
Speaker 2: goo choking.

1011
00:54:45,480 --> 00:54:50,319
Speaker 1: So sentiment started to turn publicly on them, and then

1012
00:54:50,560 --> 00:54:53,600
Speaker 1: the very scientists that helped them started to turn on them.

1013
00:54:53,719 --> 00:54:56,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, because word got out that the trees were like

1014
00:54:56,239 --> 00:55:00,680
Speaker 2: lashed to the geodesic dome in the ocean, like a

1015
00:55:00,920 --> 00:55:04,680
Speaker 2: sea of green slime. So these mainstream scientists that had

1016
00:55:04,680 --> 00:55:08,080
Speaker 2: helped design the place really started to distance themselves, and

1017
00:55:08,120 --> 00:55:10,080
Speaker 2: they figured out that if they criticized the way it

1018
00:55:10,120 --> 00:55:13,680
Speaker 2: was executed, they could kind of give themselves an alibi.

1019
00:55:14,520 --> 00:55:18,160
Speaker 2: And so the media turned on it, the scientific community

1020
00:55:18,160 --> 00:55:20,160
Speaker 2: turned on it, and so the public turned on it

1021
00:55:20,200 --> 00:55:20,680
Speaker 2: as well.

1022
00:55:21,280 --> 00:55:23,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was not a good scene. Years later, a

1023
00:55:23,960 --> 00:55:26,479
Speaker 1: few years later, in nineteen ninety six, that original og

1024
00:55:26,719 --> 00:55:30,919
Speaker 1: Synergy and biospherian Mark Nelson, he came out and wrote

1025
00:55:30,920 --> 00:55:33,120
Speaker 1: about it and said, listen, the whole purpose of this thing,

1026
00:55:33,200 --> 00:55:35,360
Speaker 1: it was like a beta test. We were supposed to

1027
00:55:35,400 --> 00:55:38,920
Speaker 1: go in there, see what didn't work as you would expect,

1028
00:55:39,239 --> 00:55:41,680
Speaker 1: and then the second team would come in in year

1029
00:55:41,719 --> 00:55:45,160
Speaker 1: three and rectify some of these and then see what

1030
00:55:45,200 --> 00:55:47,920
Speaker 1: worked and one didn't. And it's one hundred year experience,

1031
00:55:48,000 --> 00:55:52,359
Speaker 1: you guys. It's a long game. The problem was they

1032
00:55:52,400 --> 00:55:54,840
Speaker 1: painted it like it wasn't a beta test, like it

1033
00:55:54,880 --> 00:55:57,200
Speaker 1: was kind of this perfect, amazing thing out of the box.

1034
00:55:57,680 --> 00:56:00,279
Speaker 1: And they had chances. And that's what's so frustrating about

1035
00:56:00,280 --> 00:56:02,399
Speaker 1: this whole thing, as they had chances time and time

1036
00:56:02,400 --> 00:56:06,719
Speaker 1: again to come out and with pr basically that talked

1037
00:56:06,760 --> 00:56:08,960
Speaker 1: about the stuff and was up front, and they would

1038
00:56:09,000 --> 00:56:11,600
Speaker 1: have had a much better time selling it to the

1039
00:56:11,600 --> 00:56:14,600
Speaker 1: public when things started going bad than if they stood

1040
00:56:14,600 --> 00:56:17,000
Speaker 1: their ground, which is what they did and were like, nah,

1041
00:56:17,040 --> 00:56:19,040
Speaker 1: I know what you're talking about, that everything's going great.

1042
00:56:19,520 --> 00:56:23,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, Because anytime something came up, like the Duffel bags

1043
00:56:23,120 --> 00:56:25,920
Speaker 2: or the CO two scover or whatever. John Allen and

1044
00:56:26,040 --> 00:56:29,200
Speaker 2: his inner circle decided the best route was to cover

1045
00:56:29,280 --> 00:56:33,160
Speaker 2: it up or lie or obfuse skate. And it was

1046
00:56:33,320 --> 00:56:36,200
Speaker 2: very obvious because, in true synergy and fashion, none of

1047
00:56:36,200 --> 00:56:39,560
Speaker 2: them had any experience lying to the press, so it

1048
00:56:39,640 --> 00:56:44,080
Speaker 2: was really kind of obvious that they were full of full.

1049
00:56:43,880 --> 00:56:48,400
Speaker 1: Of yes, saltwater marsh poo pooh.

1050
00:56:48,920 --> 00:56:51,200
Speaker 2: Sure, So the whole there was like this two year

1051
00:56:51,280 --> 00:56:55,480
Speaker 2: ongoing pr disaster, and really, more than anything, that's probably

1052
00:56:55,520 --> 00:56:57,359
Speaker 2: what sunk the project.

1053
00:56:57,440 --> 00:57:00,120
Speaker 1: That's right. But regardless of what the world thought and

1054
00:57:00,160 --> 00:57:02,880
Speaker 1: what the press thought, they brought in that oxygen. It

1055
00:57:02,960 --> 00:57:06,200
Speaker 1: sustain them. Is actually kind of a fun moment because

1056
00:57:06,200 --> 00:57:08,680
Speaker 1: they were very despondent at this point in the documentary.

1057
00:57:08,960 --> 00:57:12,359
Speaker 1: They're weak, they can't breathe, They're walking around just like

1058
00:57:12,480 --> 00:57:15,680
Speaker 1: slugging around, and then that oxygen gets pumped in and

1059
00:57:15,719 --> 00:57:19,960
Speaker 1: they're like almost dancing around in this place. Yes, pretty great,

1060
00:57:20,440 --> 00:57:23,600
Speaker 1: brought in some house music, and you know, they brought

1061
00:57:23,640 --> 00:57:26,640
Speaker 1: it in for better or for worse, and finished the experiment.

1062
00:57:26,680 --> 00:57:28,800
Speaker 1: They did stay in there, to their credit, for the

1063
00:57:29,000 --> 00:57:33,160
Speaker 1: entire two years, and emerged on September twenty third, nineteen

1064
00:57:33,320 --> 00:57:37,680
Speaker 1: ninety three. As Mark Nelson would say, profoundly changed.

1065
00:57:37,440 --> 00:57:41,400
Speaker 2: Right, and then as scheduled, Mission two went in after

1066
00:57:41,520 --> 00:57:45,880
Speaker 2: Mission one, I think like a few months afterward Mission

1067
00:57:45,920 --> 00:57:47,919
Speaker 2: I was slated to just stay in for a year,

1068
00:57:48,480 --> 00:57:50,680
Speaker 2: but it didn't last nearly as long.

1069
00:57:50,880 --> 00:57:54,080
Speaker 1: Well. Also, Mission two only had three people, Polly Shore,

1070
00:57:54,480 --> 00:57:56,120
Speaker 1: Brendan Fraser, and Stephen Baldwin.

1071
00:57:57,600 --> 00:58:04,160
Speaker 2: So has anyone seen Biote? WHOA that is A It's

1072
00:58:04,200 --> 00:58:05,680
Speaker 2: a genuinely good movie.

1073
00:58:05,800 --> 00:58:11,120
Speaker 1: This is my takeaway from Nashville beats Sweet Potatoes. Biodome. Yeah,

1074
00:58:11,760 --> 00:58:14,720
Speaker 1: huge town for that stuff, right, it's I watched it

1075
00:58:14,800 --> 00:58:18,360
Speaker 1: for research. Seriously, I still didn't. I saw him to

1076
00:58:18,360 --> 00:58:19,440
Speaker 1: watch it, and may be.

1077
00:58:19,480 --> 00:58:22,080
Speaker 2: The only person on the planet who's ever watched Biodome

1078
00:58:22,280 --> 00:58:26,280
Speaker 2: for reach purposes. But it paid off because they actually

1079
00:58:26,320 --> 00:58:28,840
Speaker 2: captured a lot of the spirit of everything that went

1080
00:58:28,880 --> 00:58:32,400
Speaker 2: wrong in there. It just never went right like Polly

1081
00:58:32,480 --> 00:58:33,919
Speaker 2: Shore got it to in the end.

1082
00:58:35,040 --> 00:58:39,280
Speaker 1: So Ed Bass you remember Ed he was the billionaire

1083
00:58:39,280 --> 00:58:41,400
Speaker 1: son who funded this thing. He sort of fed up

1084
00:58:41,400 --> 00:58:44,400
Speaker 1: with all this bad press, the divided factions. It has

1085
00:58:44,440 --> 00:58:47,000
Speaker 1: really become pretty ugly at this point. So he said,

1086
00:58:47,040 --> 00:58:48,640
Speaker 1: all right, you know what, I'm going to stage a

1087
00:58:48,760 --> 00:58:51,920
Speaker 1: hostile takeover of my own company. And John Allen you're

1088
00:58:51,960 --> 00:58:53,840
Speaker 1: out of here. I'm sorry. I love you, man. I

1089
00:58:53,880 --> 00:58:56,240
Speaker 1: love all the preform dancing we did over the years,

1090
00:58:57,000 --> 00:59:00,400
Speaker 1: all the crazy creative kids stuff that we dreamed up.

1091
00:59:01,040 --> 00:59:04,160
Speaker 1: Apparently not under the influence of drugs, which was highly surprising.

1092
00:59:05,000 --> 00:59:05,120
Speaker 3: Uh.

1093
00:59:05,520 --> 00:59:07,200
Speaker 1: They were kind of straight, straight edge, right.

1094
00:59:07,080 --> 00:59:08,960
Speaker 2: Supposedly, just weirder and weirder.

1095
00:59:09,080 --> 00:59:12,919
Speaker 1: I just don't believe it. And uh, it became way

1096
00:59:12,960 --> 00:59:16,520
Speaker 1: more preneur and less eco after this point. I went

1097
00:59:16,560 --> 00:59:19,160
Speaker 1: in a more twisted direction when they brought in a

1098
00:59:19,240 --> 00:59:25,800
Speaker 1: new board and a new CEO named Steve Bannon. Yes, really,

1099
00:59:27,280 --> 00:59:29,640
Speaker 1: And in the documentary they said the name Steve Bannon.

1100
00:59:29,680 --> 00:59:34,200
Speaker 1: I went, well, that's a coincidence. And then Waltz's in

1101
00:59:34,880 --> 00:59:39,040
Speaker 1: Younger Steve Bannon. I was like, really, yeah, they put

1102
00:59:39,320 --> 00:59:41,600
Speaker 1: a villain to introduce in that three exactly.

1103
00:59:41,840 --> 00:59:44,800
Speaker 2: It was very surprising. The guy used to be able

1104
00:59:44,800 --> 00:59:47,320
Speaker 2: to buy coke off of on air Force one. That's

1105
00:59:47,320 --> 00:59:50,560
Speaker 2: who they put in charge a Biosphere two at the end.

1106
00:59:50,800 --> 00:59:53,240
Speaker 1: That's right, he was only wearing one collared shirt at

1107
00:59:53,240 --> 00:59:53,520
Speaker 1: the time.

1108
00:59:53,560 --> 00:59:55,520
Speaker 2: You're right, did not.

1109
00:59:55,480 --> 00:59:57,760
Speaker 1: Get into that. Whatever that look is where you wear two,

1110
00:59:58,160 --> 01:00:00,640
Speaker 1: it's I don't know what we have seen that all right,

1111
01:00:00,640 --> 01:00:03,960
Speaker 1: I'm wearing this shirt. Imagine if I had like like

1112
01:00:04,000 --> 01:00:08,960
Speaker 1: an eyesod polo underneath it with another collar that's up.

1113
01:00:09,720 --> 01:00:13,320
Speaker 1: That's Steve Bannon's look. Sure, he's the only guy that

1114
01:00:13,440 --> 01:00:16,280
Speaker 1: does that, so maybe credit to him.

1115
01:00:16,480 --> 01:00:17,960
Speaker 2: No, okay, no.

1116
01:00:19,520 --> 01:00:20,920
Speaker 1: Two collar shirts anyway.

1117
01:00:21,160 --> 01:00:26,600
Speaker 2: So Mark van Pillow and Abigail Alling were rightfully concerned

1118
01:00:26,880 --> 01:00:29,560
Speaker 2: about this new direction. They were worried about the safety

1119
01:00:29,600 --> 01:00:32,800
Speaker 2: of the Mission two crew, so they went in and

1120
01:00:33,120 --> 01:00:35,880
Speaker 2: broke the seal to the facility. They gave it a

1121
01:00:35,880 --> 01:00:39,000
Speaker 2: bunch of beer until it pete and then opened up,

1122
01:00:39,920 --> 01:00:42,440
Speaker 2: then opened up the air and let it in.

1123
01:00:43,920 --> 01:00:50,960
Speaker 1: Really beats sweet potatoes, biodome and breaking the seal.

1124
01:00:51,040 --> 01:01:00,000
Speaker 6: Breaking the seal at the bar, Little Nashy, Little Nashy trends. Yeah,

1125
01:01:00,160 --> 01:01:03,040
Speaker 6: that's what I'm hoping You ever nicknamed the city and

1126
01:01:03,080 --> 01:01:03,600
Speaker 6: it worked?

1127
01:01:03,800 --> 01:01:06,520
Speaker 2: No? Not in all the times I've tried.

1128
01:01:06,600 --> 01:01:08,200
Speaker 1: I'm pretty good at it. You ever heard of the

1129
01:01:08,200 --> 01:01:08,720
Speaker 1: Big Apple?

1130
01:01:09,760 --> 01:01:10,320
Speaker 2: Holy Cow?

1131
01:01:10,400 --> 01:01:10,520
Speaker 1: Is it?

1132
01:01:10,800 --> 01:01:15,640
Speaker 2: That was a mean wow? I called it the old

1133
01:01:15,720 --> 01:01:17,000
Speaker 2: cow Pasture.

1134
01:01:18,640 --> 01:01:22,280
Speaker 1: Just didn't take, so they busted them out. I like

1135
01:01:22,360 --> 01:01:24,200
Speaker 1: to think it happened like in the dead of night.

1136
01:01:24,320 --> 01:01:25,960
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if it was that dramatic, but that's

1137
01:01:25,960 --> 01:01:27,880
Speaker 1: how it plays out of my head at least. And

1138
01:01:27,920 --> 01:01:31,400
Speaker 1: that was the end of Biosphere too, as far as

1139
01:01:31,440 --> 01:01:35,200
Speaker 1: that project goes, No. One hundred years. That one hundred

1140
01:01:35,240 --> 01:01:39,080
Speaker 1: and fifty to two hundred million dollars closed system lasted

1141
01:01:39,120 --> 01:01:41,960
Speaker 1: for less than three years total, and it would never

1142
01:01:42,000 --> 01:01:44,080
Speaker 1: be a closed system again. Like you can visit it now,

1143
01:01:44,240 --> 01:01:47,240
Speaker 1: so it's obviously not a closed system. It's very cool.

1144
01:01:47,280 --> 01:01:49,680
Speaker 1: But you can walk in that door and through lots

1145
01:01:49,720 --> 01:01:52,160
Speaker 1: of other doors now, yeah, and then visit all those

1146
01:01:52,200 --> 01:01:54,560
Speaker 1: biomes and it is still legitimately amazing.

1147
01:01:54,760 --> 01:01:57,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is amazing. But because it was never closed

1148
01:01:57,920 --> 01:02:01,280
Speaker 2: off again, the spirit of the project was really lost forever.

1149
01:02:02,280 --> 01:02:05,240
Speaker 2: And because the press turned on it and scientific community

1150
01:02:05,280 --> 01:02:08,080
Speaker 2: turned on it, we still today have this idea of

1151
01:02:08,160 --> 01:02:11,320
Speaker 2: Biosphere two just being a complete clue g mess, kind

1152
01:02:11,320 --> 01:02:14,320
Speaker 2: of a laughing stock that some hippies tried that really

1153
01:02:14,360 --> 01:02:18,840
Speaker 2: didn't work out. And that's all true, but there's a

1154
01:02:18,880 --> 01:02:21,480
Speaker 2: lot of stuff that gets overlooked too. Apparently hundreds of

1155
01:02:21,520 --> 01:02:26,160
Speaker 2: papers came out of the Biosphere project and some genuine

1156
01:02:26,200 --> 01:02:31,040
Speaker 2: scientific discoveries did as well. That low tech wastewater system

1157
01:02:31,080 --> 01:02:33,520
Speaker 2: that didn't really work for them because of their ocean

1158
01:02:33,640 --> 01:02:37,000
Speaker 2: turning slimy actually has worked in other developing parts of

1159
01:02:37,040 --> 01:02:37,440
Speaker 2: the world.

1160
01:02:37,480 --> 01:02:39,919
Speaker 1: It's used all over, that's right, which is great.

1161
01:02:40,160 --> 01:02:46,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's also the discovery that ocean acidification bleaches coral

1162
01:02:47,040 --> 01:02:49,600
Speaker 2: and kills it off. That came out of biosphere too

1163
01:02:49,640 --> 01:02:49,960
Speaker 2: as well.

1164
01:02:50,040 --> 01:02:51,880
Speaker 1: That's right. That's a big problem these days. And then

1165
01:02:51,880 --> 01:02:56,960
Speaker 1: all started there. Well the bush babies, Sure, what happened

1166
01:02:57,000 --> 01:02:58,680
Speaker 1: to them? They became extinct.

1167
01:02:58,920 --> 01:03:01,640
Speaker 2: Yes, they went extinct. The bush babies went extinct. Everybody,

1168
01:03:01,640 --> 01:03:03,600
Speaker 2: I don't know why you keep giving these This is

1169
01:03:03,640 --> 01:03:07,240
Speaker 2: a silver lining. At least there is a silver lining

1170
01:03:07,360 --> 01:03:10,400
Speaker 2: is that while they were there before they went extinct,

1171
01:03:10,440 --> 01:03:13,360
Speaker 2: they actually managed to reproduce. And if you were creating

1172
01:03:13,400 --> 01:03:17,560
Speaker 2: this test bed for off earth habitation, like, that's a

1173
01:03:17,680 --> 01:03:21,160
Speaker 2: really big deal. They got some mammals to reproduce and

1174
01:03:21,240 --> 01:03:24,720
Speaker 2: a closed off system, so good things did actually happen.

1175
01:03:24,760 --> 01:03:29,520
Speaker 2: But probably the biggest contribution that Biosphere two gave us

1176
01:03:29,920 --> 01:03:36,280
Speaker 2: was it reinvigorated humanity's love of Earth. I guess it

1177
01:03:36,400 --> 01:03:39,000
Speaker 2: kind of peaked previously in about nineteen seventy with the

1178
01:03:39,040 --> 01:03:42,040
Speaker 2: First Earth Day. Then everybody was like, oh, I hadn't

1179
01:03:42,080 --> 01:03:44,360
Speaker 2: heard of cocaine before, let me start doing that. Instead

1180
01:03:45,720 --> 01:03:48,000
Speaker 2: went that way for a couple of decades, and then

1181
01:03:48,000 --> 01:03:52,600
Speaker 2: the biosperience came back and like blue, everybody's coke right

1182
01:03:52,640 --> 01:03:55,480
Speaker 2: off their table and got them focused again on on

1183
01:03:55,720 --> 01:03:57,480
Speaker 2: thebandon jumped on the floor right.

1184
01:04:00,400 --> 01:04:05,040
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean it fascinated the world with environmentalism again,

1185
01:04:05,040 --> 01:04:08,000
Speaker 1: and it kind of kickstarted that next wave of environmentalism

1186
01:04:08,000 --> 01:04:11,120
Speaker 1: in a real way. It really jumps started things on

1187
01:04:11,160 --> 01:04:13,640
Speaker 1: the welfare of the planet and for a little while least.

1188
01:04:14,080 --> 01:04:16,320
Speaker 1: And the thing that's frustrating is to think about, like,

1189
01:04:16,360 --> 01:04:19,040
Speaker 1: where would we be if it hadn't gone that way?

1190
01:04:19,160 --> 01:04:21,200
Speaker 1: Like we would be I think last year would have

1191
01:04:21,200 --> 01:04:25,360
Speaker 1: been year thirty of this amazing experiment. How much further

1192
01:04:25,480 --> 01:04:27,280
Speaker 1: and we've made some pretty great strides, but how much

1193
01:04:27,320 --> 01:04:30,560
Speaker 1: further would we have been along in terms of caring

1194
01:04:30,600 --> 01:04:35,560
Speaker 1: for our planet had Biosphere to just really solved everything

1195
01:04:35,760 --> 01:04:38,240
Speaker 1: to begin with and just kicked as much ass as

1196
01:04:38,280 --> 01:04:41,240
Speaker 1: everyone thought I was going to kick. Sure, it's sad

1197
01:04:41,240 --> 01:04:41,680
Speaker 1: to think about.

1198
01:04:41,800 --> 01:04:44,200
Speaker 2: It's also possible that it was just too it actually

1199
01:04:44,280 --> 01:04:47,040
Speaker 2: was too clue you to produce any scientific value. But

1200
01:04:47,320 --> 01:04:49,480
Speaker 2: we'll never know ed.

1201
01:04:49,560 --> 01:04:52,440
Speaker 1: Bask got Columbia University to take it on as an

1202
01:04:52,440 --> 01:04:56,640
Speaker 1: annex at one point for their science departments. That dissolved eventually,

1203
01:04:56,760 --> 01:04:58,960
Speaker 1: and now when you go and visit, you will see

1204
01:04:58,960 --> 01:05:02,000
Speaker 1: a University of Arizona and a branding everywhere because they

1205
01:05:02,520 --> 01:05:04,800
Speaker 1: run it now and that's one of their research facilities

1206
01:05:04,840 --> 01:05:08,240
Speaker 1: and they still carry out science there, real science. If

1207
01:05:08,280 --> 01:05:10,840
Speaker 1: you ever decide to go, and again I recommend you do,

1208
01:05:11,320 --> 01:05:13,320
Speaker 1: you're gonna be staying there. In Tucson, not too far away,

1209
01:05:13,880 --> 01:05:18,680
Speaker 1: there's a great Mexican restaurant downtown Tucson called Pinka that

1210
01:05:18,720 --> 01:05:21,840
Speaker 1: we ate and it is delicious and wonderful. It really

1211
01:05:21,920 --> 01:05:22,840
Speaker 1: is great cocktails.

1212
01:05:23,360 --> 01:05:26,000
Speaker 2: And then today they say that if you do go

1213
01:05:26,040 --> 01:05:28,840
Speaker 2: take the tour, there's a legend that goes that you

1214
01:05:28,880 --> 01:05:31,560
Speaker 2: should hang back and get out of sight of the

1215
01:05:31,600 --> 01:05:34,880
Speaker 2: tour guide, especially in the rainforest biome, and just duck

1216
01:05:35,000 --> 01:05:37,080
Speaker 2: behind some bushes and hide there for the rest of

1217
01:05:37,080 --> 01:05:40,640
Speaker 2: the night after they lock up. If you're really really quiet,

1218
01:05:41,280 --> 01:05:44,680
Speaker 2: you look around, you might just catch the ghosts of

1219
01:05:44,760 --> 01:05:48,920
Speaker 2: the bush babies. And if you look really really closely,

1220
01:05:49,280 --> 01:05:51,800
Speaker 2: you'll see that one of them has its hair standing

1221
01:05:51,840 --> 01:05:52,240
Speaker 2: on end.

1222
01:05:53,680 --> 01:06:10,440
Speaker 1: And that's the story by his fear too, everybody. Thank you, Nashville,

1223
01:06:10,920 --> 01:06:22,040
Speaker 1: thank you very much. Stuff you Should Know is a

1224
01:06:22,080 --> 01:06:25,919
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit

1225
01:06:25,960 --> 01:06:29,240
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

1226
01:06:29,240 --> 01:06:30,120
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.