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Doomsday Seed Vault Design Unveiled
in2mind writes "The BBC News is reporting on the completion of a design for a 'doomsday' vault ... that will house seeds. All known varieties of food crops will be represented in the structure, which will be constructed by the Norwegian government. The vault aims to safeguard the world's agriculture from future catastrophes by building into the side of a mountain. On a remote island. Near the North pole. The Svalbard International Seed Vault will house the seed samples at a preservative -18C (0F), and could be used by post-apocalyptic people to feed a hungry planet."
...on seeds that are buried in a mountain on a remote island? Provided they can get there, how many big macs can they make from those seeds?
If one of the things they're building this against is global warming, how are they planning to keep the seeds warm if... umm... it gets warmer?
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Now the aliens know where to aim their bunker buster lasers.
How am I supposed to get to these seeds in a post-apocalyptic world?
I bet they don't include them, u know, its a GATEWAY DRUG, not a medication or clothing material..
Very cool, very depressing.
Assuming they aren't so hungry that they don't just eat the seeds...
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Oh, okay... no problem... can you fast for three months while we thaw, plant, and harvest??? ~or~ Um, yeah... about that seed cache... well, uh, you see... we sort of buried it in the north pole, but we didn't really count on all the global warming stuff melting the surrounding area and like it all falling into the ocean, you know?
The Svalbard International Seed Vault will house the seed samples will at a preservative -18C (0F), and could be used by post-apocalyptic people to feed a hungry planet.
I don't think Unicron likes seeds.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
The summary claims that it "could be used by post-apocalyptic people to feed a hungry planet". If it were a system of distributed vaults spread around the planet, I could see this happening.
But a single vault in an inaccessible area? Let's consider the situation. If the world is 'post-apocalyptic', that means some seriously bad stuff has happened. To assume that whatever happened was so selective as to leave the worldwide transport infrastructure needed to take the seeds and "feed a hungry planet" but happened to kill all seed stores and food sources... requires a stretch of the imagination that would snap a logical mind.
I'm all for dramatic story summaries that play fast and loose with the facts to get me to- hey, wait a second, no I'm not.
But will starving people plant the seeds and wait, or eat the seeds right off? If they wait, they might starve in the meantime, and if the eat them immediately they will starve eventually.
The government can't save you.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Scientists go to the North Pole to build a Doomsday Vault, only to find such a vault is already there.
o_O
Sigs are for Terrorists.
...where did I leave that key?
How is a post apocalyptic stone man going to even know where (or if) this vault exists?
Thanks to the internet, we can now all die alone together! -SomeWoman
Karen Traviss been writing a science fiction series, Wess'har Wars, that has a collection of "pure" plant seeds and animal DNA not patented by any Earth corporation that was sent to a distant planet several hundred years before. While the corporations would love get their greedy hands on that, several different aliens are fighting over the planet. Except for the planet and aliens, this scenario could still happen in the future.
The assumption for this project is that you'll be able to find enough other sources of food to last you until the next harvest; canned goods, plants, the dead. No one said this is supposed to feed survivors immediately, otherwise they would have built a pantry. Plus, with all the genetic engineering going on, it's nice to know that we have at least some of the original stock preserved should we accidentally implant some Achilles Heel that causes a crop to be wiped out be disease, plague, or climate.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
As much as /.'ers love to complain about how bad a software mono-culture is, the _entire_ agricultural community is operating under very similar conditions. The risks to our food production capabilities are extremely high.
While doomsday headlines right off the Weekly World News attract eyeballs, the reality is that this seed storage facility may be far more beneficial than most people realize.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Seems like putting all your eggs in a single basket is maybe not the best solution.
Since seeds are cheap why not distribute storage repositories around the globe?
Nonetheless I am thankful that the Norwegians are doing this for potentially all of humanity.
Come to think about it, I suppose the fact that our collective genome is stuck on this planet is akin to putting all your eggs in a single fragile basket.
If they started based on economic value I'm assuming the first seeds included were Hemp. It's the biggest cash crop in the US.
Ocean voyage. Fighting off post-apocalyptic pirates to get to the seed storage site only to find that it's submerged and you have to fight mutant sea creatures to get inside so you can save your village with the last non-mutated vegetables in the world.
:)
Kind of like a cross between "The Postman" and "Waterworld".
Okay, I lied about the "good" part.
Plus, with all the genetic engineering going on, it's nice to know that we have at least some of the original stock preserved should we accidentally implant some Achilles Heel that causes a crop to be wiped out be disease, plague, or climate.
That's what I'm thinking - it's really unlikely we'll ever need to use it as a true "doomsday store". But as a reference for older genetic strains from a certain timeframe...
I hope they keep up regular deposits of things.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Now they'll have something to eat besides all the cockroaches.
When they open the vault, all they will get is a notice saying that the usage rights of these seeds has expired and to please contact patent-holder Monsanto for a renewal.
Is it going to be guarded by sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads?
(Gotta watch out for those Norveegians and their doomsday lairs!)
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
There will be signs posted in Esperanto along the way.
Seeds don't just grow in sterile dirt. You need the little microbes, worms, fungi, and whatnot to complete the nitrogen cycle. Plus bees to pollenate any flowering species (fruit trees).
Well, okay, they were going there for a geologic exploration, and it was the south pole. But Mr. Lovecraft was pretty close...
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Didn't USA build a doomsday vault for patents? It scares me a lot more than the doomsday vault for seed. Because it means that somebody might actually have a plan to rule the post apocalyptic world, and when that somebody is powerful enough, there's interest for the apocalypse to begin.
People naively assume that since the climate ruins the entire planet, nobody really wants climate changes to happen. This is just a random assumption. A polluted planet means man is not free to breath air, drink water, procreate. And those who have the knowledge to make food water air or babies in that polluted world, rule it.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
I really really hope I don't have to hunt for a water chip just so the vault can operate in the near future.
Though it sounds pretty entertaining.
"Hegelians, who love a synthesis, will probably conclude that he wears a wig." - Bertrand Russell
I love all kinds of roasted seeds :)
"... and could be used by post-apocalyptic people to feed a hungry planet"
Am I the only one who read this as to not mean the hungry people on the planet? I read it more as a means to rebuild the eco-system of the world, thus feeding the planet. Sure, building the agriculture back up will in turn feed the people; but a long term goaled project like this surly is planning for a long term result.
"I only know 2 things: The love for me, and the fear of me."
Nah, it could be a good movie, or a good video game, or paper RPG module, or book for that matter. I had the same exact thought, "Whoah, that would make a cool story!"
Imagine, it starts out in some desolate village, with people scraping by on a few mutant crops and canned goods. Every year, the situation becomes a little more desperate as the crops produce few viable seeds and the canned goods are running out. Our intrepid hero (probably a moon-headed youth out exploring some old ruins instead of working) finds a fragment of an ancient magazine mentioning the seed-vault. He has some difficulty convincing his elders to invest any of the villages precious food-stuffs in his hair-brained scheme, but then the village seed stocks are plundered by raiders, leaving no choice. Of course, the raiders find out about the seed-vault and thus become recurring bad-guys throughout the rest of the story.
The journey to the seed-vault would be fraught with danger. Mutants, savages, the ever-present raiders, hot-zones and weather run amok all dog our heros on their journey. I say heros, because of course we need a team. There has to be the strong and capable ranger-type who doesn't quite trust the kid; the plucky heroine, tomboyish until she lets her hair down and we discover just how beautiful she is; the kid's geeky friend who knows how to fix things; the brawny muscle-type with a secret heart of gold who sacrifices himself when all seems lost, and the sneaky one who turns out to be a traitor like we always suspected he would.
When they finally get there, they discover... well, it could go lots of ways here. I'll leave it up to the imagination.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Not unless I can get there first and make popcorn out of the lot of it! RS \
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
How about not just store seeds from plants, but also DNA from humans and animals?
Many animals will unfortunately go extinct, many already have, many currently are in the process of going extinct.
POKEY HAS A POSSE! HOORAY!
I'll have you know that I already penned a rough script on this and sent it to my staff in Hollywood. Any further discussing my script and I'll have to invoke DMCA on you!!!
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable" - JFK
Jeepers, it seems everyday, there's some BIG reminder that this civilisation is freakin' toast.
If it isn't oil depletion, it's global warming. If it isn't that, it's seed banks. If it isn't seed banks, it's 5 minutes to midnight...
I said, "Hey MISTER CONDUCTOR! WHERE ARE WE GOING TO???"
He said,
"I don't know. I'm just following the tracks..."
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
It's a trick! The seeds are just there to attract the mutant birds, which will attract the mutant cats, which will attract the mutant dog... which of course we will shoot them all and have our Mutant North Pole(TM) meat locker already built.
"I only know 2 things: The love for me, and the fear of me."
VICTOLY INDEED POKEY!
-grumbles about lack of strike and underline-
... and included cannabis and poppy seeds.
I think that this is a great idea, but I've got one thing to say. They sure as hell better keep out any genetically modified seeds. If humanity has to start all over again, let's give future generations nature's original lineage. Why make them start off on the wrong(man-made) foot? Maybe I'm being over-critical, but we are obviously doing many things wrong with and to earth and its lineage.
Such ardent preparation to "survive" the rape. So little action to stop the rape! Where is the spirit of 1776?
Oh Crap! This one says we need bees to pollinate the flowers. Does anyone remember where we keep the Doomsday Insect Vault?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
You have to realize that security is also a problem. Somebody with some resources will have to make a real attempt to reach the seed bank. If it was say, in the middle of Europe, then it could potentially be plundered by anybody.
I don't respond to AC's.
We're at the end of the current 20,000-year interglacial period of warmth and about to plunge back down into a frigid 80,000-year period of glaciation.
The 100,000-year glaciation cycle is as regular as clockwork, and nobody really has a clue how to stop it. (Chucking massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere isn't anywhere near enough.)
So shouldn't the Doomsday Vault be located somewhere where it can be reached, rather than on a mountain side that will soon be (geologically speaking) under 3 kilometers of ice?
No one here has shown the slightest interest in how they can contribute their seed! Surely there's a decent enought reason for a post-apocalypse /. commnity?
Oh cool, then we can stop worrying about destroying ourselves. We have a backup plan.
t seems everyday, there's some BIG reminder that this civilisation is freakin' toast.
There was a recent Doctor Who episode that explored this. We go around worrying so much bout how the human race is going to die out, that we never consider the option that maybe nothing happens and we survive and thrive.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
I seriously think this is a good first step and a rare instance of humanity thinking ahead. This one secure store is obviously not sufficent on a global level with the catastrophies that they have indicated but it is indeed a great pilot that will hopefully get other countries doing the same or similar.
Mr. President, we must not allow a Seed Vault gap!
Considering this is a building whose entire purpose is to give seed to the planet, the floor plan is architecturally appropriate. I'm sure it's intentional. This architect deserves an award.
I normally don't reply to my posts, but I have something to add, and I can't resist.
Please note that this is obviously a European design. "Sleeve to protect tunnel from erosion and climactic changes" would likely have been edited out of the final draft if the designer was American.
I'm sure this design project was quite entertaining.
I just don't like the sound of that... sounds kind of tentacly.
From reading a few of the comments I think that some posters are missing the point. First off, the idea is not to save a few seeds in the hopes that those seeds will feed the 'entire' population of earth after planting just one crop. The idea is to preserve the overall agricultural diversity of our 'future' ecosystem. As one particular species of plant (or whatever) goes extinct, the proposed seed bank would (hopefully) ensure that our future ancestors could reintroduce the species back into the ecosystem, assuming that whatever caused the species to go extinct was no longer present, be it nuclear war, climatic changes, etc. As for the location, well, I imagine that it makes more financial sense to keep them in a place where you won't have to foot the air-conditioning bill. Sure, it would be great to have these 'master-backup' seed banks all over the earth to prevent a wayward disaster from wiping out the whole stock, but I'd guess that the cost of building a cold-storage facility for an indefinite period of operation in Nairobi would be much more costly. (Not to mention that if the arctic DOES melt, we're all probably done for anyways...) And the article does mention that there are several seed banks already in existence, and that this facility is to be a more secure backup to the existing banks. Just my 2 cents...
Should there simply be a climate shift, it could be sufficient to wipe out all the, oh, let's choose wheat. Or, if not all, then simply the variety Wonder Bread is made from. Then, after a few years or decades or whatever, and things have "normalized" a bit, it would be possible to grow this crop again, provided there was a safe store of seed somewhere. Then the vault would come in handy.
If there is a major disaster, war, meteor, blu-ray, whatever, there may be sufficient food for humanity to get by on, but not happily or healthily. So, it's back to the vault to start over.
If a disaster occurs that wipes out all food sources, we're dead, unless just eat Soylent Green (now with more people) until we get a good enough harvest from the vault stores, to take over food production. But that wouldn't really be fair, because at that point, the Soylent Green factories would already employ a vast portion of the workforce, and quitting cold turkey would put a lot of people out of jobs. So, it'd probably be a gradual shift over to bread and stuff.
Come to think of it, I guess they need a vast embryo vault too, for the food producing animals. What's bread without cheese? Corn without tripe?
It'd be sort of funny if after the apocolypse (which is sort of funny when you think about it) if nobody could get to the seeds, and then about 10k years later the seeds escaped but due to evolution and all that good stuff (accelerated by the post-apocolyse end stuff) the plants whiped out the existing plants which killed off the animals which couldn't digest the new plants and didn't have the old plants to feed on.
What a hoot.
The design seems similiar to King Tut's Tomb.
Does it come with a stardrive?
The glass is half-full. With poison. And there are cracks in the glass. The dirty, dirty glass.
Nature doesn't care one whit about 'deserve'. We do, or we die. (eventually) There are no other options. And very likely nobody but us near enough to care one way or the other.
T
Laws are horrible moral guides, moral guides make even worse laws.
At least as long as they'll last without it.
I used to bulls-eye womp-rats in my pants
Are you sure about that? What if they start fighting over it?
It's possible it won't be. During the last ice age the water used to form the ice drew down the sea level enough to allow migration of plants, animals, and Siberians across the Bering Strait into Alaska and down into North America, one of the major (but not the only) ways North America was populated originally. It's a fallacy to think a given ice age covers the poles like Sherman-Williams paint. The glaciers advance, but in lots of fingers rather than one big sheet. I don't know that it can be predicted where these northerly ice-free regions would be in the case of another ice age, but hte possibility exists and a northern area isn't a bad spot. So build more than one.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
What do we eat? it takes 60 days or so for corn, 100 for potatoes... and just where are we planning to plant these? In the post-apocalyptic soil eh?
Good One (tm). Of course, they are doing something, I'm not, but there is such a thing as wasted effort.
How long will a post-apocalyptic population last on seeds that are buried in a mountain on a remote island? Provided they can get there, how many big macs can they make from those seeds?
And they might as well make them into bread, because they are unlikely to sprout.
Seeds stay fertile only for a limited time. You can stretch that somewhat by keeping them frozen - provided that the particular seeds can survive freezing, of course. But short of cryonic preservation (after perfusing them with cryoprotectants) you're not going to get them to last more than a few years.
That's why REAL plant gene banks work by growing the plants with heavy water. This drastically slows their metabolism (along with that of any bugs that might attack them), resulting in these tiny bonsai-like specimens that live very slowly - and thus very long - and eventually make seeds you can use to continue the cycle. Grow their seeds in normal water and you're back to normal plants - or gradually switch the plants over to normal water and they may revert to normal growth patterns.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
It's just been reported that due to Global Warming the project has been scraped.
You're supposed to plant them. :p
But rather than traditional nuclear winter scenarios, I think it's a good idea in case any of the bio-engineered crops ever goes rogue, or some freak disease or pest wipes out a species. How many hurricanes would it take to wipe out, say, the localized strains of rice in a region? One year of disasters? Two? Five?
Or one particularly pernicious bio-engineered cross breeding that produces sterile (no seed) offspring?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Time capsules being lost are a prime example. Markers are knocked over by lawnmowers, stolen, or just not installed.
People break into tombs and steal artifacts.
The entrance art looks like Colossus: The Forbin Project entrance. That's cool.
The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.[Harry Truman]
...because after this apocalypse they're preparing for everyone is going to be able to get to a mountain, thats on an island, near the north pole. BRILLIANT!
THIS MODERATION IS DEFECTIVE
I DEMAND RECOMPENSE
For more information on the in-joke, see Pokey The Penguin
HOORAY POKEY
There are exactly 42,935,718 letter sized sheets in a square mile.
Permafrost will keep the vault below freezing point and the seeds will further be protected by metre-thick walls of reinforced concrete, two airlocks and high security blast- proof doors. Sounds like a challenge! I'm forming a high skills mercenary team to go in and get those seeds. I'll need an Olympic level biathlete , a demolitions expert, a Harrier pilot, a (preferably beautiful) horticulturist, an eskimo, a fence, and possibly an astronaut and/or a Mason. Equal Opportunity Employer
...let's open up our beloved Vault 13, give buddy a spear, and send him off to Norway to get the Garden of Eden Creation Kit!
Government... the cause of and solution all of life's problems.
I sure hope they remember to include Cannabis Sativa seeds, maybe some opium poppies too.
Otherwise it's gonna be one dull post-apocalyptic future.
After the treacherous journey to the magical safe, spoken of in legends. Our heroes have survived hundreds of miles of danger, death and despair. As they approach the sealed bunker, our fearless leader turns slowly and says, "What the hell do you mean?!? I thought _you_ wrote down the combo ..."
Bark less. Wag more.
Plenty, as long as some of them are sesame seeds for the buns.
1 in 4 Maine children in struggle with hunger.
Many times on this forum I have heard the short sightedness of the human race lamented. For once there is a story about someone looking to the future and planning for it and most comments and making fun of it. Clearly it is put where it is to have the greatest chance of survival. It may be difficult to get to, but faced with the choice of attempting to preserve the species or sitting on the ground and feeling sorry for myself becuase doing something was difficult, I for one would try to continue the species. I can remember many times where I did something even myself thought was not going to be needed or would be useless, tape backups come to mind, only to find it saved my bacon. Perhaps it is /. readers that are short sighted.
People after the apocalypse can't be too picky.
If all we have are doomsday seeds then we grow doomsday plants and eat doomsday fruit (bitter at first, but you'll get used to it).
And even if those doomsday seeds don't grow, we'll still have cockroaches and dandilions, right?
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
This reminds me of Chrono Trigger, in the future...
Marketing will make it all ok. Don't worry. Watch TV and eat your Frito's. How long will seeds remain viable stored at 0F? Putting it at Svalbard makes sense. You don't want Mel Gibson or the blond kid with no underwear getting ahold of the seeds, you want someone who can organize an expedition to a place like Svalbard because they're probably organized enough to make good use of the seeds. Quest for Broccoli!
Yes, because the last thing we want is genetically engineered plants.
No, that's the first thing you want. But you also want to know where you have come from.
You see, when you write code you version control everything not because going forward you know you'l make a mistake, but because sometimes it can be useful to see the history of a thing evolving. And so it is with plants (or animals) we modify, what is so wrong with keeping a genetic change history to see how a thing has changed or if there might not be some interesting property in an earlier version we might have missed and wish to re-incorperate in a stronger form? To say we know enough about genetics today that we can do the best possible job of alteration is laughable; I am sure in twenty years we'll be able to tweak genes in ways we cannot even imagine today.
Obviously the whole source code control system breaks apart at some point as a good metaphor, but still I think the rough idea is good.
I would eat a whole plate of cow no matter how many legs or eyes it had, I don't see any problem at all with enhancing the food we eat. I have no qualms there, please do not make me out to be one of those against the forward march of genetics.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Global warming will cause the oceans to rise and the island will be underwater. Far better to have multiple vaults, several on every continent. I think one should be placed within 5 miles of the Clock of the Long Now:w
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_of_the_Long_No
Maybe make another vault accessible through the service entrance at the Eifel Tower, behind a door marked, "Nothing to see here, now move along."
Stonehenge definitely needs a vault.
etc. etc. it's not like the seed stock they are preserving are rare or difficult to preserve and each vault is a onetime expense. I think we should litter the planet with archives using as many backup methods as we can imagine.
This sounds a little hysterical and typical of the Norwegian government's PC nonsense. Like the time their national pension fund manager was sanctioned for pulling all investments out of Norwegian defense related firms because he wanted to make a political statement.
1) Build Post-Apocalyptic Seed Bank for $5 million
2) Cause Apocalypse
3) Profit!!
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
And not enough emphasis on the biodiversity aspects.
We're really shooting ourselves in our collective foot by the "efficiencies" being implemented in modern farming. Where before there might have been numerous different and diverse varieties of a plant--potatoes, say, or tomatoes, beans, peas, or apples--now farmers concentrate on just a few that are high-yielding or easy to control or that are otherwise "efficient." The same holds true of animals used for food. Many formerly robust breeds of pigs or chickens or beef cattle are now verging on extinction because it's cheaper to focus on raising one or two breeds.
What happens if a blight or pest shows up that devastates our few varieties of corn or wheat? Suppose the more popular breed of swine or chicken develops some sort of genetic anomaly or other disease? I believe (but am not sure) that there's already been a scare regarding corn. It could happen with any other food plant.
Interested hobbyist gardeners have been forming "seed savers" groups for years to perpetuate what they call "heirloom" vegetables. (They do it for ornamental plants, too.) More recently, small-scale farmers and hobbyists have begun doing the same thing with "heritage" livestock animals such as turkeys, chickens, and swine.
There's an interest in these products among food lovers (fancy restaurants, famous chefs, or what-have you). Heirloom tomatoes and heritage pork are deemed to be a lot tastier than the everyday supermarket varieties, and I suspect that may be true. But more attention needs to be paid to preserving all these breeds and varieties so that our food plants and animals retain the robustness that comes from diversity.
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
I know I have seeds from 95 that sprouted last year for the garden, some flowers and stuff. But I do tend to just harvest new ones every year from the better looking specimens. We don't do anything more exotic than dry the seed, stick it in jars, and store in the dark.
With that said, we also have some professionally canned up in steel cans that are said to last a long time, precisely for a "seed bank" reason, all open pollinated stuff. And we also have long term storage food,packed in nitrogen, which a large part consists of just dried grains, beans, peas, etc, which is "seed" as well if needs be for any emergency uses.
I still think their remote cyro vault is a good idea though, can't hurt to have backups for backups, especially with stuff like *food*.
The real question is whether they'll bury to Doomsday Porn Vault next to it. If we provide porn, it would practically double the incentive to find this thing! Sex and Food!
Nifty book named "Fallen Angels" where in the near future anti global warming folks manage to get rid of all the greenhouse gases and such. Guess what... the world plunges into an ice age rather quickly. Politicians of course keep blaming technology to the point of outlawing sci-fi books, movies, etc. The only tech savvy people are the ones stranded on an orbital space station. The fallen angels are 2 people who were scooping some atmosphere to replenish the station's air, and get shot down. Sci-fi fans try to help them, there is naked dancing on a glacier (seriously), and stuff happens.
Great read.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
I'd be happy to deposit some of my seed for this project! At least one donation a day for the next 60 years... it's not getting used anywhere else, might as well give it away to a good cause!
Libertas in infinitum
and Twinkies...
I'd bring a few different strains, most likely jack herer, blueberry, & durban poison would be close to the top. Surprised no one else mentioned this.
Assuming they don't eat them all first!
All your seeds are belong to us
"It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
But a good education will show you the way. In this particular case, I have seen the lab since I went to CSU (seemed like forever). In fact, I can tell you that the lab has the highest priority on the energy grid up at CSU. When a power outage occurs, it will have the last bit of power (even over Poudre Valley Hospital). I know that they have multiple generators there that are fed from natural gas as well as diesel. All in all, it is a good lab. But the real key here is that we (the USA) are the only places with these storage facilities. IIRC, there are something like 5 others storage facilities in other countries and that was in 198[23] era.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I believe one implementation was the Terminator gene from Monsanto.
I think it was withdrawn after international protest in the mid 90's
Any ideas on how this well thought-out vault will survive a doomsday scenario? When the ice caps melt, will the temperature of the vault rise? because that would destroy the seeds.
I hope they have an, actual, answer to that.
---
No seeds for you!
Ace
I think the seeds themselves are a sufficient MacGuffin. They are what our characters and their rivals are going after. And in the film of this, we would roll the end credits right after they found the seed vaults, or else after they (unintentionally?) destroyed the entrance in an explosive avalanche.
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
This seems like a failed idea even before it's been implemented. I glanced through the article but didn't read it thoroughly so maybe it's mentioned in there somewhere.
They say they looked as far forward as 200 years to the conditions that might exist then.
Well, suppose in the intervening 150 years, there's war, use of biological weapons that kill a large portion of the population or some other extreme disaster.
When the people who.. by some stretch of the imagination actually find out or KNOW about the seed bank... struggle, by boat, to the cavern holding the seeds. Somehow manage to gain entrance (having managed to translate whatever language is used as signs and instructions) and find the seeds... only to have absolutely no idea what to do with them and no land to plant them on.
Wouldn't it make more sense to include two more rooms, one very small and one extremely large? The small room would contain a thorough knowledge of how to plant, care for and grow the seeds, what the mature specimen looks like and what they made be used for along with how to harvest new seeds. Along with, possibly, microscopes.
The second room would hold a hydroponics lab capable of producing some quantity of mature plants from the seeds. With some kind of power plant/system. Perhaps an undeployed system of solar cells.
There may be more info somewhere else, but as far as I can tell from the article, these people are very shortsighted.
If you're one of the survivors of the apocalypse, you want to go to an armory first, and THEN the seed bank.
Otherwise you'll show up at the seed bank and meet the guys who had the foresight to bring guns.
Before going in to cold storage, one particularly bulked up seed was heard to say -- "I'll be back".
(Scene from "The Germinator")
Don't worry. At the rate we're burning fossil fuel, we should be able to prevent any ice ages from arriving before the Apocalypse. When we run out of oil, America still has lots and lots of coal...
Of course, if global warming turns out to have a "Day After Tomorrow" phase, then your concerns are warranted. Maybe someone can start another Doomsday Seed Bank in Minnesota, north of Duluth. Or in Buffalo, NY.
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
Does throwing everyone who plants hemp into prison count?
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
... and full of frozen people.
so, they make a vault. Something goes kablooie, and some poor guy actually knows about this thing and makes it to the facility. And then what?... you know that vaults are widely known as being easy things to get into, right?...
The trick about this technology is to make a vault that can stand up to extinction-grade blammo, but easy enough to get into by a a guy that's just made a hike around the world, most likely starving, and armed only with a rather tenacious spoon.
Apparently, they aren't yet interested in Slashdot semen, so this doesn't appear to be a tax deductible donation opportunity for you...
First "some European" moves toward Linux, and now there's going to be a vault for "Doomsday Seeds?"
The 100,000-year glaciation cycle is as regular as clockwork, and nobody really has a clue how to stop it. (Chucking massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere isn't anywhere near enough.)
Our government policy should help in this regard. In other words: "If brute force isn't working, you're not using enough of it."
And then I can just see the environmentalists, shouting "Save the Interglacial!!", frantically encouraging everyone to go out and drive Hummers...
Diplomacy is the art of letting other people have your way.
I don't understand why there's a single vault. There should be a bunch, rather like the root domain name servers (how's that for a geeky analogy?).
IMHO, while we're at it, shove a few in orbit or on the moon. Fortunately, cooling the vaults won't be a problem in space.
Who forgot to pack the Myccorhizae and the Rhizobia...
damn.
oh well.
Next step make that vault be able to fly through space... or have I been watching a little too much Titan AE?
"To be is to do." --Socrates
"To do is to be." -- Aristotle
"Do-Be-Do-Be-Do..." --Sinatra
It's GECK.
Creak... (Door opens)
"Manual? Who needs that? Looks like we've been left us just enough corn, wheat and barley to make a loaf of bread! You get the firewood, I'll figure out how we're gonna grind it up."
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
Hopefully they have some HEMP seeds in there.... you know in case someone wants to make some good rope or something.
Nick Powers
Encryption: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to encrypt it...
from what i can see, this addition to the wishful thinking department isnt even really for humans. say there's doomsday; i think someone already mentioned how its a challenge to get people there to utilize the plants. oh yeah, and they wont have food until our "survivors" are starved, except maybe some potatoes. humans, after a doomsday, will be dead. heck, if you listen to some philosophers, we're already dead. so why not keep some life afloat for the future? seems like a good idea. its just not for us.
I think this is more in line than what the vault is actually for than the implications in it's name about Doomsdays ! I think similar vaults are already used to replant crops destroyed by hurricanes and flooding. I think in the BBC article it mentions an island or somewhere inundated by a flood and says that the best way to kill off your crops is by burying them under tons of mud.
The island is very unlikely to be underwater, they have used forecasts for the most aggresive global warming imaginable over the next 200 years and specifically chosen this site because it will be unaffected. A lot of the mountains on these islands are over 1000M high and any sea rise of even half that distance is likely to destroy so much of civilization that seed banks will be the last of our worries.
Knowing that all the seeds to the crops I don't know how to grow will be "On a remote island. Near the North pole," and probably under water when the need arises. It's gonna suck not having Google to help me figure out how to get to them, and then how to plant them.
...since a bearded guy named Noah did it 10,000 years ago...
No worries, Nordmans. You still have your Soylent Green.
I for one will welcome our new food-bearing viking overlords.
Yesterday was the time to do it right. Are we having a REVOLUTION yet?
Along with the seeds they should put the frozen embryos of giant and savage man eating creatures and label them poorly.
According to movies I've seen that would be the only sensible thing to do.
As a Slashdot discussion grows longer, the probability of an analogy involving cars approaches one.
"Mein Fuhrer, I can VOK!" Let's hope its wheelchair-accessible just in case.
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
So it's designed to hold all the samples at 0 C, thus preventing them from sprouting/molding/decaying.
But is it designed to be 0 degrees C inside with the current outside temperatures, or the outside temperatures possible in the worst-case global warming scenario of, say, a century from now? Like when we'd actually need it?
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Definitely too much jerking of some kind going on...
I sure hope they follow the licenses for all those patented and genetically modified seeds that are on the market!
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
This is a very smart move, but the real threat is genetically-modified strains making the original ones instinct. Many in the agriculture field are already worried about this happening.
If you look at the limitations of hydroponics, you'll find that most plants have a critical need for symbiotic bacteria and fungi, and a whole host of microbes, worms, and insects. Add to that the ecology around plants (both predatory, and symbiotic), and you find that those plants, even domesticated plants, need a lot more that just some dirt to be planted in.
Are we going to take billions of soil samples too? Freeze them? How about critical symbiotic plants and insects? Maybe we should just sample the entire vivosphere, before we extinct too many more species, and keep a library of every living genome on the planet from archaia to us. Maybe even better... we just stop using the planet as a toilet, and stop shoving the ecology off the edge.
Of course that would require thinking and planning... never mind.
Genda
Why, how can Norway spend money on this far-sighted project?
They nationalized the oil industry. They don't pay tens of billions of dollars a quarter in raw profits to the big four oil corporations. They have their own oil resources in the North Sea.
And since the told the reavers to get the hell out, they are running nice surpluses, have an excellent federally funded school system, giving them intelligent citizens, and they may save the plant diversity of the planet during the coming climate wreck.
Now, if they can fast track some space colonization, they might save humans from getting overheated to death.
These are things you can do if your country isn't being run by international oil companies.
Have they forgotten to "preserve" the farmers with the knowledge to grow them?!
In Post-Apocalyptic Soviet Russia, giant cockroaches eat the mutant birds!
Dit the valve provide suitable environment for every seed?
Or at least information what is suitable for the seed?
I for one welcome our Post-Apocalyptic Giant Mutant Bird overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted /.er, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground Seed Vault.
Me lost me cookie at the disco.
No good. Everyone who has seen The Future Is Wild knows that a spink is a type of burrowing quail that will evolve in the Kansas desert sometime after humanity leaves the planet (one way or another).
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney