Shrimps Give Humans a Model of Harmonious Existence on Planet Earth!

In times of economic turmoil, environmental destruction, and really bad television, turn to crustaceans for a strong example of how to carry out your lives. NetCow06 has found a perfectly balanced and new way to live in complete harmony (in a non-hippy sense) drifting around on the Internet:

The EcoSphere is the result of technology developed by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. NASA was researching self-contained communities for space explorers to live in during long-term space flights. Out of this research came the EcoSphere - an ecosystem of animal and plant life in perfect balance. Inside each EcoSphere are active micro-organisms, bright red shrimp and algae, each existing in a clear "soup" of filtered sea water.

Because the ecosphere is a self-sustaining ecosystem, you never have to feed the life within. Simply provide your EcoSphere with a source of indirect natural or artificial light and enjoy this aesthetic blend of art and science, beauty and balance. Because the living resources within the EcoSphere utilize their resources without overpopulating or contaminating their environment, the EcoSphere requires no cleaning and only minimal care.



EcoSpheres have an average life expectancy of two years. However, it is not uncommon for shrimp populations to be thriving in systems as old as 7 years. You can read the legendary cosmologist Carl Sagan's review of the Ecosphere here.

Cool huh? We bought seven of the Ecospheres to do some experiments with, expect the report to be published shortly. I always thought Smarties had the answer, now we know its actually a combination of shrimp, algae, photosynthesis and sea water that provide the ultimate answer.