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The Arctic Doomsday Seed Vault
Anonymous Cow writes "A giant refrigerated genetic bank built into the island of Svalbard has been brought online. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway is designed to house up to 4.5 million seeds in the case of a catostrophic event. The bank is funded by the Norwegian government, Monsanto Corporation, and the Gates, Rockefeller, and Syngenta Foundations. The Global Crop Diversity Trust has completed construction of the doomsday vault and is getting the facility ready to preserve the genetic heritage of the world's agriculture for future generations. There will be no full-time staff, but the vault's relative inaccessibility will facilitate monitoring human activity. Spitsbergen was considered ideal due to its lack of tectonic activity and its permafrost, which will aid preservation. Locally mined coal will provide power for refrigeration units which will further cool the seeds to the internationally recommended standard 20 to 30 C."
That article seems a little over the edge. He calls molecular biology a pseudo-science, dismisses the nobel peace prize, and claims the the green revolution was an under-handed plot by the US to turn foreign workers into a cheap labor pool. It's full of insinuations and hints towards a sinister secret agenda. I didn't bother to read the whole thing, as the craziness level was far beyond acceptable thresholds.
I recall reading about a vault made in the 50's that was recently opened, and stored inside was some vintage car that had turned into a rust bucket due to the moisture which somehow got into the vault... now maybe technology of today is a little better for sealing things off but how long can you really keep a seed safe from the damage that the mere passing of time can cause unless you put it in cryo stasis with a power source that will last a very long time?
They hope to have a couple packets of seeds of at least 100,000 plant species. It's supposed to survive most anything, being underground and out of the way. The place is fully automated with live video feeds being able to be viewed off-site. This thing is quite literally a refrigerated gigantic robotic filing cabinet with heavy-duty security!
I wish there were a proper Bio 4 protection lock on this. Those 'airlocks' may not be enough. If some bioagent like a fungus or virus comes to be that kills off a lot of plants, some or all of the remaining seeds should be fully protected even in this cold isolated region. And what about plants that only propagate as tubers? You can't store a viable potato forever. Although it could be this facility mostly exists merely to preserve the DNA, and maybe a later civilization could recreate a plant from that. Monsanto's interest in that is obvious. Now that I think of it, if you wanted to preserve DATA about the DNA, that would be easier maybe than preserving the actual DNA. I don't trust Monsanto at all in this. Let's say that genetically-modified corn contaminates all corn on the planet except what's in the vault. Do I want Monsanto goons having access to the only safe seed left? Hell no. Ever hear of blackmail? What if the only viable unmodified corn was here, and Monsanto 'kidnaps' it. Maybe not for ransom, but for power. "Buy our solution to the corn problem, because unfortunately there's no more normal corn left. So sorry." (Mr. Bond, your mission is to rescue some corn. Ernst Stavro Cornfed is trying to dominate the world's food supplies. Taco Bell will go out of business unless you stop him.)
OK say its doomsday or "really really crappy but not enough to be dooms" day.
Who gets access? Only Monsanto, Microsoft and friends?
I'd much rather see some sort of fail-safe built into this vault. Humans have to periodically check in on the vault and press the button. If they don't press it after, say, 1,000 years, the vault goes into "reseed" mode. It assumes that:
a) Humans are dead, dying, or incapable of reaching the vault
b) Whatever knocked down the humans has dissapated over the last 1000 years, so it is safe for "human friendly" life.
Of course, the 1000 years is arbitrary. I'd let a team of nuke'n'germ warfare folks come up with a number that was greater than the life expectency of thier most powerful kabooms. You could also hook up a Geiger counter to the release switch for an extra layer of protection.
So, after the 1000 years is up, the vault springs into action. It barfs out whatever bacteria is needed to fertilize the land. The it starts shooting seeds-and-spores-and-stuff deployment packages across the globe. The SSS packages burst over land, raining seeds. This may have to be done in stages. Seed the keystone species of plants first, then once those have grown, fire off the strawberries and lilacs.
The objective is to load up the vault with enough human-friendly stuff as possible. Plants that put out oxygen. Trees that have leaves, fruit, roots that are edible by human. Environmental engineer species. If humans are alive, life will get better for them. If humans have been wiped out, the packages should recreate an environment condusive to human life once more. Sure, humans might not be a dominant species for hundreds or hundreds of thousands of years, but the scales would be tipped in their favour.
Heck, while we're at it, we might as well put as much data into the vault as possible. The complete history of humans in as many languages as possible (including all the screw-ups that lead to extinction). Put in as many Rosetta Stones as possible. Put frozen humans in there, too, so future generations (hopefully) don't think aliens seeded the planet.
UTF-8: There and Back Again
Can terminator plants cross-pollinate with other strains? What effect does/would this have?
Is it at the pollen step or the seed step that they are sterile?
I'm not a biologist by any stretch, so I'm really just curious.
Sorry, this is just not true. Two conditions are needed for evolution, neither one of which is life:
There are seed stores all over the world, some refrigerated, some not. Most governments do it to prevent the genetic variability of our world's crops from dropping to zero, as well as restoring our crops if there does happen to be a disease outbreak that targets specific species of plants, especially those which are so genetically similar.
So much of the world's cereal crops are dangerously similar, due to the fact that everyone wants GMOs (genetically modified organisms) that are disease resistant, insecticide resistant, drought resistant, or infused with certain genes to deter insects. The downfall to that is the fact that you get practically no variation to select for survivability to future diseases, weeds, and insects, or to withstand pandemics or epidemics of disease.
Last I heard, Mexico banned the use of GMOs for corn farmers so that the huge staple of their diet would be reliable in the future, however since corn is an airborne pollinator some crops had been germinated from US GMO corn crops and were burned. They are pretty strict on that, and I'm just hoping a blight doesn't destroy our corn and soybean crops, the two least genetically variable crops that we grow here.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
IMO the most likely scenario where the seed bank would be needed is when the human race eventually tries to restart agriculture after the start of the next ice age. Yet when that happens, it's very likely that this island could be under a mile-thick ice sheet. That doesn't seem like the best location.
The seed vault needs to be constructed in a polar area (for cooling) and just downstream of a large water body, a river/lake, that has been dammed up. The dam must be built to need human maintenance every 100 years or so.
Should humans disappear, the dam breaks, busting open the seed vault and washing them out to germinate and get dispersed.
Or something.
---Think about the logic of a sterility gene being able to spread.
I have. I have written an academic paper that I refuse to publish due to my field of work.
The sterility gene is triggered by an enzyme that is not present in the fields that farmers plant, however, Monsanto uses that very enzyme to prepare their seeds. A very real scenario is that the terminator male plant can transmit pollen fron a non-TM female. That plant will grow, and the seed will germinate. However, any females that come from the TM-line will not germinate. Essentially, it reduces viable seed by 1/2, which is quite scary to any farmer.
---there seriously are people out there who believe though, that sterlie plants will reproduce.
It's because 1/2 of them can.
---lets say that the impossible happened and a GM crop somehow mutated and cross pollenated another plant and gave it it's sterility gene, how the fuck is that resulting plant going to pass on the gene if it's sterile?
Because it is a gene sequence start in the late stage of germination. There is a rather wide chance that the seeds could evolve to go around the terminator segment. Europe is scared of this for good reason.
It was never so simple.
The case you refer to is the African Golden Rice. There were about 70 patent rights locked between 32 companies and universities. Along with that were the Bag Agreements (seed EULAs... Material Transfer Agreements). When seed was sent over to Africa, if they had used them, they would have been bound by MTAs and owed patent rights. If they refused to pay for the patents, they would have been sanctioned by World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
They instead did the proper thing and burned the seed and waited for the 32 groups to settle it themselves. hey did, after they agreed to transfer a non-profit version of a license to Astra-Zeneca so that Africa would not be in violation.
Source: Gepts, Paul."Who owns biodiversity, and how should the owners be compensated?" Plant Physiology 134 (2004): 1295-1307. 28 Jan. 2004
If they don't press it after, say, 1,000 years, the vault goes into "reseed" mode.
And totally fuck up whatever plant life is around 1000 years from now. If there are no humans, what the hell do you need to go throwing noxious weeds like strawberries around, choking out one thousand years of evolution and bringing disease from our time in the form of mold spores to things that have had a thousand years to forget everything they knew about THAT particular strain.
If there are humans around, they can intelligently manage the revival of whatever species might exist. If not, they it makes a nice collection for an alien botanist who happens to land here. Just going into reseed mode without thought is like use sending up the contents of my vacuum bag with the next Mars mission and dumping it all over the ground there.
And before you dream about something that wakes up in 1000 years and starts throwing packets "all over the globe", you should really read The Clock of the Long Now and reconsider what you are saying.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
---your posting as AC so your argument loses a lot of it's weight right there, but lets say your protecting your job....
Not insomuch as to protect my job, but to make sure that the companies I work for don't see my name on this.
---1. whats the enzyme they use?
There's plenty of enzymes used in these procedures. The repressor gene is Tn10 with a CMV 35S promoter. Tetracycline inhibits reprssor binding, allowing expression of the cat(chloramphenicol acetyltransferase) or gus(beta-glucuronidase) gene.
What they use before they sell to farmers is tetracycline... Last I checked, that is not an enzyme.
---2. you still don't explain how sterile plants are going to pollenate anything.
I'll have to get back with you on that. I've lost the reference in which describes a pathway in which terminator genes can be continued. I'll soon post the link to the article in which I cited.
There also has to be enough oompf to power the preservation systems for 1000 years. Temperature and humidity control along are going to be big drainers, and you really don't want all your carefully-stored seed sprouting and dying twenty years after you pack em all away.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face