Home Sweet Biome

Hewlett-Packard was contracted to support Biosphere II, the world’s largest terrarium, in 1990. The facility played host to a two-year ecological experiment, which would help researchers develop technologies to purify and recycle water, air and nutrients, among other goals. HP supported the project with analytical, medical and computer systems, instrumentation and custom hardware and software. Biosphere II included five different “biomes” habitats — including desert, marsh, marine, savannah and rainforest — along with thousands of plants, 150 different crops and a variety of animals. Ultimately, eight “biospherians” volunteered for the experiment.