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Doomsday Vault: First Tree Samples Arrive At Underground Seed Store
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."
I'm pretty sure Aperture Science used the same architect.
Koans and fables for the software engineer
"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.
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.
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.