The Seed Vault
Posted by Qais Fulton
The Seed Vault, buried deep in the permafrost of Norway, is an undertaking by the world to store the seeds of all the world as a kind of back up drive for the biodiversity of the world; something we are rapidly losing as technology overruns the natural beauty of the planet. Seed vaults are nothing new, countries have been storing the templates for their basic agricultural foundations for decades, but this marks the first time the world has come together to create a single, high tech repository for seeds in a place that couldn’t suffer from power failure induced thaws by dint of its location.
Now that this process of recording our flora and fauna has begun, scientists will be able to study the genetic templates of seeds and potentially create genetic hybrids to thrive in areas less than conducive to supporting plant life. It’s not the scientific savior of our world, but a step in the right direction none the less. With a little luck it’s only a matter of time now until we get the gene bank and instant bio-engineered upgrades we’ve always dreamed of.
Seed Bank [NYT]
Categories: The Future!, Science
Posted at 6:00 pm on February 29, 2008
3 Comments -
If you want to be a little more precise, while technically in Norway, the Seed Vault is on the island of Svalbard, which is actually closer to the North Pole than to Norway, I believe.
Technicalities aside, the article gives a fairly innacurate idea of where the vault is.
Svalbard is a fascinating place..
Comment by Jakkar — March 1, 2008 @ 6:25 am
I was wondering, is the seed bank going to be kept unlocked?
It’d be pretty stupid if they locked the front door.. It’d suck if the only survivors of the coming apocalypse manage to trek all the way to Svalbard in the hopes of saving the world, only to find they can’t actually get inside the building to get at the seeds of life.
And another thing - there’d best be some instructions on the vault wall on how to correctly thaw out frozen seeds to germinate..
Comment by rhys — March 2, 2008 @ 2:40 pm
heh.. apparently it’s as fortified as a missile silo, and has been built to withstand bomb blasts.
My initial idea of it being unlocked to help future world-builders has clearly not been considered.. and furthermore, are there really any evil geniuses left with the power and misanthropy to nuke a seed vault?
My doomsday seed vault would have been so much better..
Comment by rhys — March 3, 2008 @ 2:11 pm