Jbjsaturday

IT’S not all sand in the US’s Arizona desert.

You also can find a rain forest, a savannah and even an ocean. What’s even more strange: they are all inside.

Those very different environments are part of Biosphere 2, a series of interconnected buildings that look like gigantic greenhouses from the future. A group of scientists works there. And because it is open to the public, there are lots of visitors, too.

“Once you take a tour, you’re pretty much hooked,” says Mary Kay Carson, the author of the new book Inside Biosphere 2. “It’s a oneof-a-kind place.”

Construction on Biosphere 2 began in the 1980s and lasted four years. It was intended to be a selfcontained unit in which people