In the early 1990s, a small team tried to survive in a hermetically sealed space containing replicas of Earth's ecosystems. Their trials and discoveries still have repercussions today. Glittering in ...

ORACLE, Ariz. — Plopped in the Sonoran Desert, just outside Tucson, Ariz., sits a massive, multilevel greenhouse that's probably best known as the inspiration for a Pauly Shore movie. A slick, stepped ...

Thirty years ago last month, on Sept. 26, 1993, a group of eight weary, visionary adventurers “returned” to Earth after two years of living together in a miniature version of our world — a ...

James is a published author with multiple pop-history and science books to his name. He specializes in history, space, strange science, and anything out of the ordinary.View full profile James is a ...

Atlas Obscura on Slate is a new travel blog. Like us on Facebook, Tumblr, or follow us on Twitter @atlasobscura. With dreams of colonizing Mars, John P. Allen, who made his millions in oil, funded the ...

They lived for two years and 20 minutes under the glass of a miniature Earth, complete with an ocean, rain forest, desert, grasslands and mangroves. Their air and water were recycled, and they grew ...

The space prototype colony Biosphere II shows high carbon dioxide levels. Biosphere II’s carbon dioxide level was more than that in the atmosphere but within safety standards, according to a report ...