Gallery: Cryogenics, Robot Dinos, and Other Visions of the Future
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At the HI-SEAS Mars program, six people spend up to a year living in complete isolation in a 12,000-square-foot geodesic dome on the side of the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii. The simulation attempts to mimic what life would be like for humans on another planet — participants must wear spacesuits equipped with oxygen when going outside, cook with freeze-dried ingredients, and send emails to the outside world with a 20-minute delay.
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The Henn-na Hotel near Nagasaki, Japan is staffed almost entirely by robots (some of which are dinosaurs). They work reception, carry luggage, and make wake-up calls.
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The Global Seed Vault is located on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, holding 880,000 seed samples from 234 countries frozen at -27°F. The 479-foot-long “doomsday” vault safeguards precious agriculture in case of a catastrophe like nuclear war.
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A woolly mammoth statue greets visitors at BGI, formerly Beijing Genomics Institute, in Shenzhen, China. Scientists hope to create a mammoth from the genes of long-dead specimens.
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At the Eden Project biosphere in Cornwall, England, rubber trees, bananas, and cashews are spread out across a Malaysian paddy field as well as a waterfall in a 164-foot-high dome.
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The Sooam Biotech Research Foundation, in Seoul, South Korea, is the only lab that clones dogs commercially. For $100,000, pet owners can buy a clone created from the DNA of their beloved dog.
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Each night scientists at a base in Ny-Ålesund, Norway, send a laser into the stratosphere to study clouds.
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Astrobiologist Cyprien Verseux explores the Mauna Loa volcano in a full space suit at the HI-SEAS Mars simulation on Hawaii.
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The Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Phoenix, Arizona preserves the deceased in liquid nitrogen at sub-zero temperatures in the hopes of resuscitating them at some point in the future. For $200,000, you can preserve the whole body after death; for $80,000, you can preserve the head. Here, four bodies and heads are preserved in a stainless steel container dubbed a “bigfoot.”
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Ny-Ålesund is a town in Svalbard, Norway, home to 11 research stations from 10 countries. In this photo, French scientist René Bürgi prepares to send a laser into the stratosphere to study cloud pollution.
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The Eden Project biosphere in Cornwall, England claims to house the largest indoor rainforest in the world and is home to 1,185 varieties of plants.
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At the Beijing Genomics Institute in Shenzhen, China, scientists produce a quarter of the genomic data generated in the world. So far, BGI has sequenced the genomes of over 50,000 people, plus the chickpea, giant panda, and a 4,000-year-old man named Inuk.
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A Doberman is inseminated with a clone at Sooam Biotech in Seoul, South Korea.
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The Proti-Farm, located in Ermelo in the Netherlands, produces *Alphitobius diaperinus*, an edible species of beetle. It sells the product in a variety of forms—whole dried larvae, ground protein powder, purified oil, fertilizer—to food and pharmaceutical companies.
