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."

Comments

Monsanto...

[locokamil]

... in charge of saving our agricultural bacon? The same people who tried to bring agricultural holocaust to the developing world with their you-can't-save-our-seeds-for-next-year's-crop shenanigans?

Hopefully their influence will be counterbalanced by some of the less evil groups participating in the project.

Re:Monsanto...

[alshithead]

"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."

Wait while affix my tinfoil hat...okay, I can agree to a certain point. If you're really that worried then buy some Monsanto stock. That way you win too.

"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."

With tinfoil hat still firmly in place...how does that save you in an apocalyptic scenario? Where does the technology come into play that gives us a good starting point with seed stock if the technology to manipulate DNA isn't available because of the collapse of civilization? :)

Re:Monsanto...

[Anonymous Coward]

IAA plant biologist, so I guess I should answer this one.

It depends how exactly they are made "terminator". You can make plants sterile in several ways, and one way used is for example making the male flowers (of corn) sterile. Now such a plant cannot cross-pollinate other plants. However, it is possible (though a bit unlikely) that a wild-type male flower cross-pollinates with your terminator plant. In that case, you would get off-spring. Unless of course, you also made the female flower sterile, or added something that kills off the seed in early stages of development.

Now, suppose that, for some reason, your terminator gene spreads to another strain. This would IMHO have not a big effect. In most crop species, cross-pollination is rare, and if it happens, the offspring will be carrying a gene that makes it less fit (by definition, it makes the plant sterile, or kills the seed). So the changes are very high that such a (artificial) "mutation" (its a transgene actually) goes extinct quickly (there is a high selection pressure against such a gene).

If the gene is recessive (ie, if a wild strain cross with the terminator plant produces viable offspring) it may still survive for some time, but it doesn't do anything.

So it's not dangerous in my opinion, it is quite a good technique. It is just has the lame side-effect (but good for the company) to create a monopoly on the seeds. Of course, if you pay me a *lot* of money, I can find ways around that:P
(which makes me wonder if this is legal. I mean, it is illegal (but stupidly so) to copy their construct that makes the seeds worthwhile, but it is probably not illegal to work around the sterility).

I guess, the ethically sound way of doing this would be to create an inducable fertility. I do not think it has been done yet (but i am not in that field anymore). But in theory it is (relatively) easy nowadays to create genes that are switched on under circumstances. So in other words: if you spray your plant with some alcohol, it becomes fertile.

This would allow you to get a few batches of plants with seeds.

Old news and FUD

[drunken_boxer777]

This is old news.

The linked article in the summary looks like a lot of FUD to me. Read at your own risk.

From the article:

The bank will have dual blast-proof doors with motion sensors, two airlocks, and walls of steel-reinforced concrete one meter thick. ... There will be no full-time staff...

My question is, if there is a doomsday event, how do we get in?

"Well, fuck, it's doomsday! What'll we do now?"

[Junior J. Junior III]

"Don't worry, don't you remember that slashdot article about that vault?"

"What vault?"

"The doomsday seed vault! It'll save us all, we'll have plenty to eat as soon as we can get some crops planted."

"That's great! Where is it?"

"The Arctic circle."

"What?"

"Well, they needed to keep the seeds cold so they'd stay viable."

"How in the fuck are we going to get to the north pole?"

"Um, oh yeah. Peopleburgers it is then."

Where's the minus sign?

[ChrisMaple]

There's a lot of difference between -20 to -30 (TFA) and 20 to 30 (summary).

It's all relative

[NotQuiteReal]

One species' "doomsday" is another species chance to thrive. I don't see any giant reptiles bitching over their fate now, do I?

Just think how pissed you'd be if a bunch of velociraptors popped out of some jurassic "doomsday" vault next week and started chomping down on your homo sapiens brethren?

Think about the long term. Modern Humans have been around for as few as 6000 years according to some folks, as long as a few hundred thousand years, maybe a bit more, according to more rational minds.

The same rational minds that put the age of the universe several orders of magnitude greater.

One way or the other, what's the difference?

And reseed to what end? Just for the hell of it?

[SuperKendall]

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.