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A sealed bottle garden thriving after 40 years without fresh air or water

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Re: A sealed bottle garden thriving after 40 years without fresh air or water

#51

Post by brazzy »

binarycheese wrote: post #6

What if we build a huge sealed bottle garden and send to Mars, can humans live in it!

No. First, every kilogram we send to Mars will be hugely expensive, so low mass will be prioritized over long-term sustainability for research and exploration missions.

Second, the plants chosen for bottle gardens are very sturdy and tolerant of non-optimal environments. Humans are a lot more sensitive.

If you're interested in the topic, read "The Martian" by Any Weird, a very well-researched SF story about an astronaut who gets left behind during a Mars mission and has to survive for several years using equipment that was only specced to sustain the expedition for a month.

Re: A sealed bottle garden thriving after 40 years without fresh air or water

#52

Post by Wingman4l7 »

mml wrote: post #19
prawks wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EcoSpheres have an average life expectancy of two years. Very interesting, I had thought they were sustainable for much longer than that. I suppose even the most tightly controlled starting conditions will lead to unpredictable results when you have organisms reproducing.

I still have one. The shrimp were alive for about 2 years. Now there are other organisms... I think these are more about the incredible toughness of the shrimp involved. Their native habitat consists of rainwater puddles held in volcanic rock, so the shrimposphere is probably fairly luxurious.

> I think these are more about the incredible toughness of the shrimp involved.

Pretty much; this guy[1] claims that basically, the shrimp slowly starve over the course of a couple years, shrinking after each molt.

[1]: http://www.petshrimp.com/opaeinfo.php

Re: A sealed bottle garden thriving after 40 years without fresh air or water

#53

Post by duaneb »

CapitalistCartr wrote: post #24

I can't figure out what would be providing more CO2. The container is near full of greenery; where does it get air exchange? Maybe the cork leaks just enough is all I can figure.

Probably root fungus and bacteria symbiosis. These have been made in biology classes for decades, this is just a particularly massive example.

Re: A sealed bottle garden thriving after 40 years without fresh air or water

#54

Post by duaneb »

mathattack wrote: post #33
harty65 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a related article: "But the eco-system also uses cellular respiration to break down decaying material shed by the plant. In this part of the process, bacteria inside the soil of the bottle garden absorbs the plant's waste oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide which the growing plant can reuse."

Was this a planned hack, or does this naturally occur? My first thought was also, "Where does the CO2 come from?" I suspect this is a very fine balance - if you're off by just a little, one or the other would die. There's not much room for error in a jar.

> I suspect this is a very fine balance - if you're off by just a little, one or the other would die.

This is an illusion; it's a dialectic between the two. Problems lead to a shift in balance, not a death.

Re: A sealed bottle garden thriving after 40 years without fresh air or water

#55

Post by blazespin »

kjhughes wrote: post #50

StackExchange Skeptics addressed this last year: Can a plant survive bottled in its own ecosystem for 50 years? http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/15838/can-a-plan...

It's not exactly addressed. They just say it might work.

Re: A sealed bottle garden thriving after 40 years without fresh air or water

#56

Post by zhemao »

minikites wrote: post #25
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #24

I can't figure out what would be providing more CO2. The container is near full of greenery; where does it get air exchange? Maybe the cork leaks just enough is all I can figure.

Exactly, where is the plant mass coming from? Can bacteria break soil down into carbon that the plant can use to build more leaves/stems/roots?

Aerobic bacteria takes in oxygen and produces CO2 in the same way that animals do.

Re: A sealed bottle garden thriving after 40 years without fresh air or water

#57

Post by [deleted] »

Luc wrote: post #7
mikkom wrote: post #4

Blogspam, original at http://www.nollywoodone.com/latest-additions/8934-the-sealed...

'The Internet Movie Database for Africa' is the original? For that article it's probably the Daily Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2267504/The-s... He started it in 1960 with 'about a quarter of a pint of water', then added water in 1972.

[deleted]

Re: A sealed bottle garden thriving after 40 years without fresh air or water

#58

Post by mikkom »

Luc wrote: post #7
mikkom wrote: post #4

Blogspam, original at http://www.nollywoodone.com/latest-additions/8934-the-sealed...

'The Internet Movie Database for Africa' is the original? For that article it's probably the Daily Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2267504/The-s... He started it in 1960 with 'about a quarter of a pint of water', then added water in 1972.

Thanks for the correction. That was the source the blogspam site cited (another blogspam site it seems).

Re: A sealed bottle garden thriving after 40 years without fresh air or water

#59

Post by afternooner »

What I'm more amused by is the level of scepticism over an self contained eco-system. In order for any eco-system, either contained or not contained, there has to be much greater tolerances to extreme conditions that we generally acknowledge. In truth, outside of absolute extremes where organic life is simply impossible because or either denaturing or absolute destruction of organic material, life will exist. It's also entirely possible that this bottle now contains bacteria, fungi, or other organisms that are much more efficient at breaking down the organic material left by the dying plant mater.

Re: A sealed bottle garden thriving after 40 years without fresh air or water

#60

Post by gnufied »

darkxanthos wrote: post #36
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Daily Fail version claims so, but that doesn't seem sufficient. Nonetheless, its clearly working. It'd be interesting to insert a probe through the cork and run a real-time analysis of the air composition.

I don't think we can say it's clearly working... This seems like an extraordinary claim and it's hard to know if there's any truth fudging.

There is also, Cellular respiration in night within the plant itself, which release some CO2 in the atmosphere. So may be combined with CO2 released by Bacteria and Cellular respiration in plant, it can survive.
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