www.virginmedia.com More than 20,000 produce from over 100 nations have arrived at a "Doomsday vault" in the Arctic Circle.
On the sixth anniversary of the frozen depository, which now houses more than 800,000 samples, the latest delivery has arrived at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. The shipment includes the first offering from Japan, where collections were threatened by the devastating earthquake and tsunami in 2011.
Designed to withstand all environmental, natural and human disasters, the facility offers permanent protection—a global backup system for the planet's plant resources. The seeds in the vault are stored under black box arrangements, meaning that overseers of the vault will never open or test any of the seed packages.
On the sixth anniversary of the frozen depository, which now houses more than 800,000 samples, the latest delivery has arrived at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. The shipment includes the first offering from Japan, where collections were threatened by the devastating earthquake and tsunami in 2011.
Designed to withstand all environmental, natural and human disasters, the facility offers permanent protection—a global backup system for the planet's plant resources. The seeds in the vault are stored under black box arrangements, meaning that overseers of the vault will never open or test any of the seed packages.
science.howstuffworks.com Deep inside a mountain on a remote island in the Svalbard archipelago, located halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, the vault cost £5m ($7m) took 12 months to build. The permafrost and thick rock ensure that, even in the case of a power cut, the seed samples will remain frozen in the earth for centuries. The vault will be the ultimate insurance policy for the world's food supply, securing millions of seeds representing every important crop variety available in the world today.
Here are a few of the storage facilities amongst more than 1,000 seed banks located all over the world.
1. The Millennium Seed Bank Project, located at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, United Kingdom aims to store and protect more than 24,000 global species of plants
2. The Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry was established in 1894 in St. Petersburg, Russia, and is the oldest seed bank in the world
3. Berry Botanic Garden (Portland, Ore.): Seeds from endangered plants of the Pacific Northwest
4. International Center for Tropical Agriculture (Coli, Colombia): Cassava, forages, beans
5. International Potato Center (Lima, Peru): Potatoes
6. International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (Ibadan, Nigeria): Groundnut, cowpea, soybean, yam
7. International Rice Research Institute (Los Banos, Philippines): Rice
Diversity is crucial to the future of human civilization. Is mankind preparing for a potential apocalypse? If such an event happened without warning, I'm wondering how stranded societies could access the storage in the Arctic.
Edith Parzefall and I wrote a futuristic series of novels set in Britland, where the forest has taken over and buried the past. Normal people amongst the generations who survive the Great Flood eat natural food during their quest for salvation. You can see the Higher Ground series on the sidebar, one click away from Amazon.
How do you think we'd survive an apocalypse?
Here are a few of the storage facilities amongst more than 1,000 seed banks located all over the world.
1. The Millennium Seed Bank Project, located at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, United Kingdom aims to store and protect more than 24,000 global species of plants
2. The Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry was established in 1894 in St. Petersburg, Russia, and is the oldest seed bank in the world
3. Berry Botanic Garden (Portland, Ore.): Seeds from endangered plants of the Pacific Northwest
4. International Center for Tropical Agriculture (Coli, Colombia): Cassava, forages, beans
5. International Potato Center (Lima, Peru): Potatoes
6. International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (Ibadan, Nigeria): Groundnut, cowpea, soybean, yam
7. International Rice Research Institute (Los Banos, Philippines): Rice
Diversity is crucial to the future of human civilization. Is mankind preparing for a potential apocalypse? If such an event happened without warning, I'm wondering how stranded societies could access the storage in the Arctic.
Edith Parzefall and I wrote a futuristic series of novels set in Britland, where the forest has taken over and buried the past. Normal people amongst the generations who survive the Great Flood eat natural food during their quest for salvation. You can see the Higher Ground series on the sidebar, one click away from Amazon.
How do you think we'd survive an apocalypse?
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