Biosphere 2 was built to test whether eight people could survive completely sealed off from the rest of Earth for two years — but inside its glass walls, cockroaches and stowaway ants boomed while most of the birds and pollinators died.

Biosphere 2 was built to test whether eight people could survive completely sealed off from the rest of Earth for two years — but inside its glass walls, cockroaches and stowaway ants boomed while most of the birds and pollinators died.

Picture two versions of Earth. One is the planet outside your window, running its rainforests and coral reefs and pollinators for free, no bill attached. The other is a three-acre copy sealed under glass in the Arizona desert, built to do the same work on purpose, with a science team, a fortune behind it, and eight people living inside. The strange part: when the sealed version was cut off from the real one, the animals people wanted mostly died…