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Doomsday Vault: First Tree Samples Arrive At Underground Seed Store

Posted by samzenpus on from the last-hope dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, built into an Arctic mountain, received its first delivery of tree seeds. Opened in 2008, the vault is designed to withstand all natural and human disasters. From the article: "The 'doomsday' vault built into an Arctic mountain, which stores seeds for food crops in case of a natural disaster, has received its first delivery of tree samples. Norway spruce and Scots pine seeds have arrived at the frozen vault, which is located on Svalbard, an archipelago owned by and north of Norway. The organizations behind the vault hope to bring more seeds from outside of the Nordic countries. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault will now look after the samples and use them to monitor how natural forests change. They will also keep them as back-ups, in case any of the species are lost, and to see how the forests change during breeding."

30 of 55 comments (clear)

  1. Cool entrance! by QilessQi · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm pretty sure Aperture Science used the same architect.

    --
    Koans and fables for the software engineer
    1. Re:Cool entrance! by TimSSG · · Score: 1

      I'm pretty sure Aperture Science used the same architect.

      So far your post is the only one good. I hope some more good posts happen or it going to look like Slashdot has gone to seed. Tim S.

    2. Re:Cool entrance! by TWX · · Score: 1

      At the time I post this there are fifteen comments rated zero and above. None of them are really worth reading. Slashdot has indeed gone to something, but the only things it has in-common with 'seed' are the first letter and the same number of characters.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    3. Re:Cool entrance! by TWX · · Score: 1

      I don't think you want to drink what it is, unless you're Austin Powers...

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  2. All natural disasters? by pr0t0 · · Score: 1

    Survive this!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    --
    I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
    1. Re:All natural disasters? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Wow. I don't know where to begin with all of the inaccuracies and impossibilities in that video. It was clearly made by someone with a very vivid imagination and a serious lack of actual scientific knowledge. All capped off by an inattention to detail. Here's the 10 most obvious flaws (to me, at least):

      1) When the asteroid is approaching Earth, why is it glowing as if it's already on fire? It's a big ball of space rock. The burning wouldn't begin for a few million more miles as it enters the atmosphere.
      2) The asteroid survives the descent through the atmosphere intact and without shedding any debris.
      3) The impact takes way the hell too long. It wouldn't slow down much as it blasted through the atmosphere, so that dramatic slow descent before impact is pure bullshit.
      4) There is an instant and light-speed-breaking shockwave at the moment of impact. Impossible.
      5) A wave of fire spreads across the ocean. In reality, such an impact would cause a massive wall of water, not fire.
      6) The firestorms wouldn't happen. The steam generated by the heat of the impact would extinguish them. Also, the atmosphere is nearly 80% nitrogen. A sustained firestorm without fuel (and the fiery clouds are clearly separated from the ground) is nearly impossible.
      7) There would be one hell of a cloud of steam and debris. It wasn't pictured at all.
      8) Due to #7, there would be a "nuclear winter". So most likely everyone would freeze to death, not burn to death.
      9) The crater would be much smaller, submerged underwater, and any magma that was released into it might form an island. It certainly wouldn't have a glow visible from space. (How far underwater can you see? Yeah. And that's a lot less than 11 km, which is where ocean trenches bottom out.)
      10) The idiots that made that video did a pan around the earth at the end, but there's no sun anywhere nearby. What, did the asteroid kick its ass too? No? Then it's just the dumbass graphics modeling team that forgot that particular detail. Or more accurately, left it out because the earth is "darkening" and it interfered with the OMG HORRIFFIC DOOM they were trying to project.

      It's just typical bad Discovery Channel crap. It makes for good TV (at least for morons that don't cringe when they watch it), but it's scientifically crap.

      Consider that video survived.

  3. Norway has a Doomsday Vault ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Mr President, we must not allow a Doomsday-Vault gap!

  4. To paraphrase Mark Twain by Marginal+Coward · · Score: 1

    "Man is the only animal that plans for doomsday. Or needs to.”

    1. Re:To paraphrase Mark Twain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      "Man is the only animal that plans for doomsday. Or needs to.”

      One could argue the dinosaurs might have needed to plan for doomsday as well.

    2. Re:To paraphrase Mark Twain by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 2

      "Man is the only animal that plans for doomsday. Or needs to.â

      That worked out really well for the wooly mammoth, dodo bird, all of the dinosaurs, or anything else on this list.

    3. Re:To paraphrase Mark Twain by Marginal+Coward · · Score: 1

      Although TFS includes natural disasters under the category of "doomsday", I was enlisting Mr. Twain to satirize the fact that humans are perhaps more likely to cause their own extinction than the wooly mammoth, dodo bird, all of the dinosaurs, or anything else ever were. Self-extinction isn't really a proclivity that any sensible animal would have - even a dodo.

      But now that you mention it, weren't humans also responsible for most of the recent extinctions on your list? (We can't take the blame for the really old ones, or course, like the dinosaurs.) Just think how much better off passenger pigeons were before they met (European) humans.

    4. Re:To paraphrase Mark Twain by matfud · · Score: 1

      Us humans are really good at killing things. If it is profitable we can use and abuse it until it is totally gone. Hurm why do I fear that some things do not change.

  5. Target... by eth1 · · Score: 1

    So, I guess we know where the cataclysmic meteor will strike!

    1. Re:Target... by pspahn · · Score: 1

      We've known for awhile. Slashdot Beta seems to have been rolled out and it's clear where the destruction has taken place.

      40 second page loads /.? Really?

      --
      Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
  6. In Norway, but North of Norway? by bluelip · · Score: 1

    How can something be in Norway and North of Norway at the same time?

    --

    Yep, I never spell check.
    More incorrect spellings can be found he
  7. Withstand all natural and human disasters? by elgatozorbas · · Score: 1

    ... and lined with Nokia phones.

  8. Re:Good, but not adequate. Do it right. by geekmux · · Score: 1

    Everyone knows you also should have an off-site backup. I think perhaps the moon or even better an asteroid in Langrangian points L1 or L2 would work even better. We'd have to shield against radiation and cosmic rays of course.

    Having an off-site seed bank is about as worthwhile as feeling good about the spare tire you left at home in the garage after you totaled your car in an accident.

  9. Vault by tquasar · · Score: 1

    That sounds silly. Darwin must be turning over in his grave.

  10. doesn't DNA age or lose fidelity ? by vpness · · Score: 1

    I'm not slightly a DNA expert, so this is a question for those who may be. But doesn't the DNA in the seeds degrade ? Does storing them in a vault protect them from stuff that makes them degrade? if not too expensive, the concept is interesting. tho, with our nascent ability to inject DNA into another cel, wouldn't we be better off storing both the seed, and a copy of the dna for that seed, stored digitally (or carved in stone).

    1. Re:doesn't DNA age or lose fidelity ? by firewrought · · Score: 1

      I'm not slightly a DNA expert, so this is a question for those who may be. But doesn't the DNA in the seeds degrade ? Does storing them in a vault protect them from stuff that makes them degrade?

      Quoting the Wikipedia article on seed banks:

      Depending on the species, seeds are dried to a suitably low moisture content according to an appropriate protocol. Typically this will be less than 5%. The seeds then are stored at -18C or below. Because seed RNA (like our DNA) degrades with time, the seeds need to be periodically replanted and fresh seeds collected for another round of long-term storage.

      The bad news is that recalcitrant seeds can't be stored this way, so no cocoa, mango, avocado, or rubber.

      --
      -1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
    2. Re:doesn't DNA age or lose fidelity ? by cdrudge · · Score: 3, Interesting

      They will still age and degrade, but the cold temperatures and lack of oxygen due to their packaging prolong the process. It's kind of like a sealed or open package in your fridge and freezer. The better sealed and the colder stored, the longer whatever it is will last...but only up to a point.

      Depending on the seed type it may only be a relatively short time, say a dozen or two years, or it may be decades or much much longer for a more hardy seed. Whatever that time limit is, seeds can be rotated out, planted, and hopefully new generations grown to be refrozen perpetuating the cycle.

  11. Re:Acorns by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

    They're frozen, silly. That's why it's in Svalbard (go look it up on Google Maps). It's pretty close to cryogenic storage up there.

  12. Scandinavians by Grishnakh · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Here again, the Scandinavians prove they are the most superior culture on the planet. While much larger nations with far more resources are spending on their resources on military adventurism and weapons systems (including nations who also have possessions far north of the Arctic Circle, namely Russia), the Scandinavians have the highest quality of life in the world and are looking out for the future with this seed vault.

    1. Re:Scandinavians by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      I never said they were poor. However, they have a really small population compared to the US, Russia, and China, and a much smaller GNP as a result. So why aren't those countries doing useful things like this?

    2. Re:Scandinavians by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      The US has a nasty history with regard to slavery and the treatment of indigenous peoples, but that doesn't have much bearing on its current culture.

      I'm not talking about Scandinavian culture 100 years ago, only right now.

    3. Re:Scandinavians by jandersen · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Here again, the Scandinavians prove they are the most superior culture on the planet

      As a Dane, I can confirm this in full; also, we are tall, blond, honest and noble.

      However, we are not the only ones to have a seed bank - Wikipedia lists 5 major facilities: The millennium Seed Bank in UK, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, the Australian PlantBank, the Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry and National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation in the US, as well as several smaller ones in India.

  13. Re:But what if they mix with the Virus Vault by Penguinisto · · Score: 2

    On a more reality-based note...

    How in the hell are the survivors (who would be practically random) going to know...

    1) that such a thing exists
    2) where (exactly) it is
    3) how to get there (and back) without dying of something in the process (exposure, starvation, ocean storms, etc)
    4) (assuming generations later) how to read the content labels, instructions, etc ...?

    It's a nice gesture and all for nearly any other scenario, but a *lot* of assumptions would have to be made for this to be viable in a no-shit doomsday scenario. At one point in human prehistory, it was estimated that a small extinction event reduced us to around 100k people, globally. That's a pretty scattered dispersion, and assuming a similar number of survivors in some future doomsday scenario, the odds are almost lottery-sized against putting it to use.

    I'm not saying they should give up (far from it, actually) - I just think that maybe, just maybe they should expand on the idea a bit, and consider a few factors that seem awfully important when planning for a global doomsday scenario.

    --
    Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
  14. Re:But what if they mix with the Virus Vault by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 1, Funny

    How in the hell are the survivors (who would be practically random) going to know...

    1) that such a thing exists

    Ask professor Farnsworth

    2) where (exactly) it is

    It's right next to Germ Warfare Repository

    3) how to get there (and back) without dying of something in the process (exposure, starvation, ocean storms, etc)

    If the barking snakes can survive, I trust humans can too.

    4) (assuming generations later) how to read the content labels, instructions, etc ...?

    Because of where it is, I'm guessing that most vandals and meth-head copper scavengers will not be looking for it. I don't know what language they are using,but how long has it been since anyone has spoke Latin? we can still figure that out, so there's some hope. If the human species needs instructions on how to plant a fucking seed, all of your above questions are irrelevant.

  15. Re:But what if they mix with the Virus Vault by Penguinisto · · Score: 2

    If the human species needs instructions on how to plant a fucking seed, all of your above questions are irrelevant.

    ...so I give you a bag of seeds labelled "fwqnuiohuio", but don't tell you it's a plant that won't do very well outside of a warm-to-semi-tropical region, the plant fruits are underground but the plant itself is otherwise useless for food, it requires a *lot* of water during the latter phase of fruiting else you've wasted your time, and oh - it stands a great chance of giving a not-insignificant percentage of folks who eat the results a nasty case of anaphylactic shock.

    Maybe cultural memories would help them recognize what a peanut is? Not sure if it'd help them know how to grow the things...

    --
    Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
  16. Re:But what if they mix with the Virus Vault by Krishnoid · · Score: 1

    On a more reality-based note...

    How in the hell are the survivors (who would be practically random) going to know...

    1) that such a thing exists
    2) where (exactly) it is

    They can just click on the link in the summary! I know RTFA is anathema here, but this is taking it a bit far.