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Doomsday Vault Opens To Give Seeds To Syria (cnn.com)
pabloApicco sends word that the The Svalbard Global Seed Vault has opened up in order to give seeds to Syrian scientists who had to relocate their research due to the war. CNN reports: "Known as the 'Doomsday Vault,' this seed bank — operated by the Norwegian government and containing a seed of just about every known crop in the world — is meant to be humanity's backup in the event of a catastrophe that devastates crops. But it was not a natural disaster that has caused scientists to have to dip in and make the first significant withdrawal from the vault. Rather, it was the most preventable of man-made disasters -- war. The bloody conflict in Syria has left scientists at an important gene bank in Aleppo -- where new strains of drought- and heat-resistant wheat have been developed over time -- unable to continue their work in recent years. With no sign of conditions in Syria improving, scientists have begun recovering their critical inventory of seeds, sourced from around the Fertile Crescent and beyond, that have been in safekeeping beneath the Arctic ice."
wrong, they loooove the vault. Monsanto and Syngenta are big contributors, as well as Bill Gates Foundation.
http://www.abc.net.au/environm...
The seeds are being returned to Syria, who sent them to the Global Seed Vault as a precaution. From TFA:
The ICARDA Aleppo center had sent nearly 80% of the seeds and samples to the Global Seed Vault as a backup by 2012, with its last deposit being in 2014.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Map of the Place where the "Doomsday Vault" is: http://www.gosur.com/doomsday-...
The knowledge that there is any human who would attack these scientists sickens me. Why isn't there a well known sign, like the red cross for medical workers, that announces and protects humanitarian science?
Also Lebanon isn't particularly stable. It seems odd to me they would re-open in a war-torn nation right next door.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
And not the buy each year ones
Then you've never studied history, nor do you understand how humanity functions.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
The narrator for that article sounded like she grew up on Shatner Overacting Tapes. She really needs to learn to talk normal, especially if she's going to keep reporting on the news.
This is a good position for the Doomsday Vault to take. "Send us samples for both the protection of our entire planet, and whatever area they came from originally, because we can always send them back." This is one of those uncommon cases where there is a clear benefit at every level for being altruistic. I just hope they don't return all of them, lest there be another loss and then nobody has any.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
>> have been in safekeeping beneath the Arctic Ice
Wait, I thought all that was melting because the sky is falling.
Correct.
When the ice melts due to global warming, the formerly-arctic area will be sub-tropical. They'll just take the top off the vault, letting in the sunshine and warm rain to start growing all the crops. No need to transport them around the world. :-)
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
... as well as Bill Gates Foundation.
Bill Gates is not a Republican. He is a political independent, and has donated more to Democrats than Republicans.
Earnest question: is there anything significant on record that Gates is a Republican?
He doesn't behave much like one at all -- if he's a Republican he's strictly at the business end of the continuum.
He's a non-believer; the foundation acts very much in ways that are in opposition to GOP platform language on women, health, international development etc.; MS was pretty progressive as an employer while he was CEO and Chairman.
His contributions are pretty non-partisan (i.e., straightforwardly seeking influence rather than partisan support). The Foundation's contributions are overwhelmingly blue, not red.
Gates' dad is a committed Democrat. Gates has only ever no-commented.
News video by the Asociated Press : https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Maybe I'm too much of a cynic but I don't think war is that preventable.
Not enough democracy introduced - Obama failed to send more bohmbehrs so Vladi has to help. The world is all gone mad.
Politics aside, but shouldn't we wait until certain countries stopping bombing the crap out of Syria before sending seeds? Doesn't seem like a great place for a garden right now.
You say republican scam, I see corporate backup plan should one of their mutations screw the world over.
The Gates Foundation was a major player in ALEC until it became widely known.
Games may donate to Democrats, but make no mistake, he is a corporatist, globalist oligarch.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The corporate accounts that provide most of Microsoft's sales , characterized as mostly Democrats or mostly Republicans?
Microsoft and The Bill Gates Foundation are separate entities. Microsoft's biggest donations go to Seattle area and Washington State politicians, who are mostly Democrats.
Games may donate to Democrats, but make no mistake, he is a corporatist, globalist oligarch.
So is roughly 90% of Congress, and thanks to the TPP, the White House as well.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
he is a corporatist, globalist oligarch.
So is a "globalist" someone that wants to solve global problems, like malaria, extreme poverty, and 3rd world illiteracy?
they have a thing in common and their money came from a thing in common
Hear hear!
About the closest you can come to "preventing war" is "Never start a fight, always finish one."
Mathematically, the "Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma" is a simple model that comes close to politics and war. In a no-noise situation "Tit For Tat" is close to optimum, and in noisy ones the best solutions are tweaks of it. Tweaks that improve things come in two forms: ...)
1) A little forgiveness up front (like "tit for two tats, then tit for tat until some no-tats") helps keep confusion from turning into an ongoing vendetta. (You killed my dad, I kill you, your son kills me, my son kills him,
2) When things have degenerated into war or headed there (such as intermittent unprovoked tats in no discernible pattern), go to all tits. (Once the war starts, pound them into the ground as hard and fast as possible.)
On a more human conceptual scale: Proportional response leads to continuous escalation. (The opposition is never given a schelling point where they can retreat with honor. They must continue to fight and escalate or lose power to those who will.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Here's a remedy: those millions of refugees, mostly men of military age, could have united to stand up for themselves, expel their tyrant and the bloodthirsty savages of ISIS both, and made a strong future for themselves as a forward-looking, democratic Syria. Instead, they left to go enjoy Germany's freedoms instead, because running away to someone else's self-made promised land is easier than doing jack for yourself. There's a reason that Solon wrote into the Athenian law code that anyone not taking sides in a civil war would lose citizenship: you have to fight for a democracy, because others are always willing to take it from you. Moving doesn't help, it just imports cowards into working democracies.
And wants to solve it from the top down, like the way we solved Native Americans' problems.
Globalism is colonialism by another name.
You are welcome on my lawn.
He is a multimillionaire so by definition he is a Republican.
FYI: Most of the multimillionaire in the US Congress are Democrats. Tim S.
we're talking about his foundation that funds corporate fascist interests, largely a Republican realm