The venture, privately funded to start, is now run by the University of Arizona. And today, scientists there are quietly plugging away at research they hope will help us all adapt to the Biosphere ...

Inside Biosphere 2's giant glass pyramid, tropical trees stretch 80 feet above the forest floor. Crazy ants, so named because of their erratic movements, scurry below.

Biosphere 2 was intended to operate for a century, but when the biospherians entered the facility in September of 1991, "it was such a vast experiment that none of the eight of us had any ...