"That Arctic Seed Vault Isn’t Just There for a Doomsday" Topic
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Tango01 | 25 Sep 2015 1:10 p.m. PST |
"In the seven years since the Svalbard Global Seed Vault opened, hundreds of thousands of seed samples have gone into its icy tombs. And not one has come out—until now. This week the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas asked for the return of 325 little black boxes of seeds it had stored in the Svalbard vault. For many years, the center housed its own seed bank near Aleppo, Syria. Now, its scientists hope to use the Svalbard samples to regenerate that collection outside of their war-torn home. Built beneath a mountain on an Arctic island halfway between Norway and the North Pole, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault currently stores over 800,000 seed samples from 5,100 species of crops and their wild relatives. These seeds are the product of 10,000 years or so of agriculture, history they hold in their genes. The Svalbard vault's job is to protect them from catastrophe, including nuclear war. It's often called the "doomsday vault," conjuring images of the sole survivors of a global disaster jumpstarting agriculture from scratch with the help of Svalbard's frozen collection. But Svalbard is just one part of a global network of seed banks, including the center based in Syria. Each one has a specialty—the Aleppo bank focuses on crops that grow in dry areas—and each one has been sending back-up samples to Svalbard since it opened in 2008. "It's like a safety deposit box in the bank," explains Thomas Payne, head of the wheat collection at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center outside of Mexico City. Meanwhile, the centers do much more than store samples…" Full article here link Amicalement Armand |
GarrisonMiniatures | 25 Sep 2015 1:49 p.m. PST |
Doomsday may come at different times for different people. |
Zephyr1 | 25 Sep 2015 2:10 p.m. PST |
"… and then one day it was discovered that Steve, the night janitor from California, had secretly raided the seed banks to make all-natural granola bars in the break room…" |
skippy0001 | 25 Sep 2015 6:20 p.m. PST |
For skirmish scenarios, this is a good target to fight over. Complicated by the fact you can't destroy it otherwise everyone loses. |
Mako11 | 26 Sep 2015 3:46 a.m. PST |
A Doomsday Vault, and they're already cracking into it to retrieve stuff? This doesn't bode well for the program's long-term success, I suspect. |
Wonkothesane | 29 Sep 2015 6:28 a.m. PST |
All fine and dandy, but if I do survive the apocalypse, how exactly am I supposed to get to this Arctic island to enjoy the last bowl of muesli left on the planet? |
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