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The Arctic Doomsday Seed Vault

Posted by samzenpus on Wed Dec 05, 2007 08:53 PM
from the who-replants-barter-town dept.
Biotech Science
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."
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  • Monsanto... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by locokamil (850008) on Wednesday December 05 2007, @08:57PM (#21592505) Homepage
    ... 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... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by alshithead (981606) on Wednesday December 05 2007, @09:06PM (#21592587)
      "... in charge of saving our agricultural bacon?"

      Let's be fair. It is their best interests (and ours) to save specimens of original seed stocks. It's always good to be able to look back to see how you got from there to here...and maybe try and fix some huge mistake so you don't get your ass sued into oblivion. Or, worse case scenario, save the world from your "innovations". We should look at this as a plus.

      • Let's be fair. It is their best interests (and ours) to save specimens of original seed stocks. It's always good to be able to look back to see how you got from there to here...and maybe try and fix some huge mistake so you don't get your ass sued into oblivion. Or, worse case scenario, save the world from your "innovations". We should look at this as a plus.
        It's like a back-up of your thesis project just before you attempt to rewrite the kernel after 8 beers.

        • Re:Monsanto... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by alshithead (981606) on Wednesday December 05 2007, @10:07PM (#21593057)
          "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: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by svnt (697929)
      It's a brilliant plan. After Armageddon the seeds from the vault will produce plants that don't go to seed, and then next season we'll all be forced to buy them from... wait a minute.

    • Re:Monsanto... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by squidinkcalligraphy (558677) on Wednesday December 05 2007, @09:41PM (#21592865) Homepage
      Though I'm a seed saver myself, and thus am at odds with Monsanto's terminator technology (and GM in general), terminator seeds are probably quite a useful way to stop GM seeds spreading into the rest of the environment. I mean, that's one of the main arguments against GM: that GM crops may breed with other crops and weeds, creating unwanted effects, or exposing effects that might not have been apparent in the short period of testing available. Making GM crops sterile reduces the validity of this argument.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by spud603 (832173)
        Genuine question:
        Can terminator plants cross-pollinate with other strains? What effect does/would this have?
        Is it at the pollen step or the seed step that they are sterile?


        I'm not a biologist by any stretch, so I'm really just curious.

        • Re:Monsanto... (Score:5, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 06 2007, @01:14AM (#21594183)
          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.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by spud603 (832173)

          Reduces, but does not eliminate. Everything living can evolve.

          Sorry, this is just not true. Two conditions are needed for evolution, neither one of which is life:

          1. reproduction
          2. mutation


            • Fair enough. I'll amend to:
              1. Reproduction of traits
              2. Mutation of traits
              3. Selection on traits
              Good catch. Without selection you just get, well, change.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by wizardforce (1005805)

      ... 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?
      If we are ever stupid enough not to build up a back up vault and Monsanto is our only hope, then shame on us.

    • Putting Monsanto [wikipedia.org] in charge of the last remaining anything is like putting Kirstie Alley in charge of the last remaining cookies. Except that Kirstie Alley isn't pure evil.

      • Re:Monsanto... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by locokamil (850008) on Wednesday December 05 2007, @09:31PM (#21592795) Homepage
        Please understand that I have no issue with Monsanto making a profit... as long as they do so by creating and selling progressively better products.

        Yes, the new drought-resistant, high-yield strains are wonderful things that allow the starving masses to feed 'themselfs'. But by throwing in a genetic time bomb and neutering the crops, Monsanto is in effect resting on its laurels and obviating the need for further innovation.

        In fact, it's nothing more than genetic DRM. And in this case, the "DRM == bad" meme is fully and wholly applicable.
        • Yes, the new drought-resistant, high-yield strains are wonderful things that allow the starving masses to feed 'themselfs'. But by throwing in a genetic time bomb and neutering the crops, Monsanto is in effect resting on its laurels and obviating the need for further innovation.

          Maybe for now, but patents expire. Someone's going to make a small bundle by making terminator-free varieties once the patents on them expire. Of course, by then, we'll have an entire generation of farmers used to paying the piper

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by riker1384 (735780)
            Something could happen to prevent the farmers in other coutries from getting new seeds from Monsanto. A war, embargo, natural disaster or other event could cut them off from America or the Western world, leaving them unable to grow more food and dooming millions of people to starvation. It would be insane to let this become a widespread method of farming. If something happens in one part of the world you want the rest to be able to carry on.

          • Re:Monsanto... (Score:5, Interesting)

            by Creepy Crawler (680178) on Thursday December 06 2007, @01:14AM (#21594185)
            It was never so simple.

            The case you refer to is the African Golden Rice. There were about 70 patent rights locked between 32 companies and universities. Along with that were the Bag Agreements (seed EULAs... Material Transfer Agreements). When seed was sent over to Africa, if they had used them, they would have been bound by MTAs and owed patent rights. If they refused to pay for the patents, they would have been sanctioned by World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

            They instead did the proper thing and burned the seed and waited for the 32 groups to settle it themselves. hey did, after they agreed to transfer a non-profit version of a license to Astra-Zeneca so that Africa would not be in violation.

            Source: Gepts, Paul."Who owns biodiversity, and how should the owners be compensated?" Plant Physiology 134 (2004): 1295-1307. 28 Jan. 2004

  • Coal - refrigerate & coal - global warming (Score:3, Insightful)

    by alexandre (53) * on Wednesday December 05 2007, @09:02PM (#21592551) Journal
    Coal to refrigerate seeds against a catastrophic worlwide ecological disaster in part caused by a large amount of coal?

    makes sense... :P
    • Of course it makes sense. You don't want all that time and money wasted. Why not graze some cattle on the land to help spike the ball with some methane?

  • Biased Article (Score:3, Interesting)

    by myrdos2 (989497) on Wednesday December 05 2007, @09:02PM (#21592557)
    That article seems a little over the edge. He calls molecular biology a pseudo-science, dismisses the nobel peace prize, and claims the the green revolution was an under-handed plot by the US to turn foreign workers into a cheap labor pool. It's full of insinuations and hints towards a sinister secret agenda. I didn't bother to read the whole thing, as the craziness level was far beyond acceptable thresholds.

  • Good idea but... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by canuck57 (662392) on Wednesday December 05 2007, @09:06PM (#21592585)
    Good idea but who is going to be around to plant them?

    • Re:Good idea but... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by halcyon1234 (834388) on Wednesday December 05 2007, @09:41PM (#21592867) Journal
      Exactly. This is something that should have been built into the system.

      I'd much rather see some sort of fail-safe built into this vault. Humans have to periodically check in on the vault and press the button. If they don't press it after, say, 1,000 years, the vault goes into "reseed" mode. It assumes that:

      a) Humans are dead, dying, or incapable of reaching the vault

      b) Whatever knocked down the humans has dissapated over the last 1000 years, so it is safe for "human friendly" life.

      Of course, the 1000 years is arbitrary. I'd let a team of nuke'n'germ warfare folks come up with a number that was greater than the life expectency of thier most powerful kabooms. You could also hook up a Geiger counter to the release switch for an extra layer of protection.

      So, after the 1000 years is up, the vault springs into action. It barfs out whatever bacteria is needed to fertilize the land. The it starts shooting seeds-and-spores-and-stuff deployment packages across the globe. The SSS packages burst over land, raining seeds. This may have to be done in stages. Seed the keystone species of plants first, then once those have grown, fire off the strawberries and lilacs.

      The objective is to load up the vault with enough human-friendly stuff as possible. Plants that put out oxygen. Trees that have leaves, fruit, roots that are edible by human. Environmental engineer species. If humans are alive, life will get better for them. If humans have been wiped out, the packages should recreate an environment condusive to human life once more. Sure, humans might not be a dominant species for hundreds or hundreds of thousands of years, but the scales would be tipped in their favour.

      Heck, while we're at it, we might as well put as much data into the vault as possible. The complete history of humans in as many languages as possible (including all the screw-ups that lead to extinction). Put in as many Rosetta Stones as possible. Put frozen humans in there, too, so future generations (hopefully) don't think aliens seeded the planet.

      • I suggest 4 8 15 16 23 42 numbers to reset every 108 minutes. :D

      • And reseed to what end? Just for the hell of it? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by SuperKendall (25149) on Thursday December 06 2007, @01:16AM (#21594189)
        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.
        • I don't see why there'd need to be too much power for the full 1000 years. The countdown "watcher" could be just a simple logic switch with a stop watch attached to it. My digital watch runs for a year on a tiny little battery. Throw a big huge battery in the Watcher and let it run. Hook it up to something that will trickle-charge it for good measure-- solar, or geotherm, etc. Or do away with electricity all together. Have it hooked up to 100 clockwork devices that will run down in 1000 years if not w

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by tchdab1 (164848)
      The seed vault needs to be constructed in a polar area (for cooling) and just downstream of a large water body, a river/lake, that has been dammed up. The dam must be built to need human maintenance every 100 years or so.

      Should humans disappear, the dam breaks, busting open the seed vault and washing them out to germinate and get dispersed.

      Or something.

  • Old news and FUD (Score:5, Insightful)

    by drunken_boxer777 (985820) on Wednesday December 05 2007, @09:12PM (#21592641)
    This [slashdot.org] is old news [slashdot.org].

    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?

  • What about moisture damage? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by PrescriptionWarning (932687) on Wednesday December 05 2007, @09:12PM (#21592643)
    I recall reading about a vault made in the 50's that was recently opened, and stored inside was some vintage car that had turned into a rust bucket due to the moisture which somehow got into the vault... now maybe technology of today is a little better for sealing things off but how long can you really keep a seed safe from the damage that the mere passing of time can cause unless you put it in cryo stasis with a power source that will last a very long time?
  • They hope to have a couple packets of seeds of at least 100,000 plant species. It's supposed to survive most anything, being underground and out of the way. The place is fully automated with live video feeds being able to be viewed off-site. This thing is quite literally a refrigerated gigantic robotic filing cabinet with heavy-duty security!
  • "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."

  • Svalbard = bad idea (Score:5, Funny)

    by schmidt349 (690948) on Wednesday December 05 2007, @09:19PM (#21592697)
    Svalbard is not exactly the choicest site in the world for something as important as a doomsday seed vault. The island is run by Panserbjørnen and witches!

      • Re:Svalbard = bad idea (Score:4, Informative)

        by moosesocks (264553) on Wednesday December 05 2007, @10:04PM (#21593023) Homepage

        The island is run by Panserbjørnen and witches!

        One person's witches are another's alternative remedy practitioners.

        "Svalbard is completely controlled by the Kingdom of Norway and is part of it. Svalbard has a population of approximately 2,400 people as of 2005. Approximately 70% of the people are Norwegian; the remaining 30% are Russian, Ukrainian and Polish." -- wikipedia [wikipedia.org]


        That sound you're hearing is the reference [wikipedia.org] passing straight over your head....

  • I hope it will never actually be needed (Score:3, Insightful)

    by FudRucker (866063) on Wednesday December 05 2007, @09:19PM (#21592703)
    and i hope they keep Monsanto's genetically modified seed and intellectual property separate from natural seeds, thats all we need in the future is for Monsanto having a monopoly on global food crops...

    • ...all we need in the future is for Monsanto having a monopoly on global food crops...
      1. Acquire patent for nature;
      2. Usher in the apocalypse;
      3. Rebuild the world under license
      4. Name it Monsanto-World (TM)
      5. Bwa-hah-hah-hah-hah !!

  • Who gets access? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by TheLink (130905) on Wednesday December 05 2007, @09:38PM (#21592843) Journal
    OK say its doomsday or "really really crappy but not enough to be dooms" day.

    Who gets access? Only Monsanto, Microsoft and friends?

  • Wait... (Score:5, Funny)

    by popo (107611) on Wednesday December 05 2007, @10:03PM (#21593019) Homepage
    I can't remember anyone asking *me* to donate. WTF?

    Like I'm not important or something?

  • Where's the minus sign? (Score:5, Informative)

    by ChrisMaple (607946) on Wednesday December 05 2007, @10:23PM (#21593169)
    There's a lot of difference between -20 to -30 (TFA) and 20 to 30 (summary).

  • It's -20 to -30 C you stupid monkey! (Score:4, Funny)

    by ugmoe (776194) on Wednesday December 05 2007, @10:29PM (#21593205)
    It's -20 to -30 C not +20 to +30 C you stupid monkey!

    Are you so stupid that you can't even read Wikipedia?

  • It's all relative (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NotQuiteReal (608241) on Wednesday December 05 2007, @11:16PM (#21593521) Journal
    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? [wikipedia.org]

  • Flaws (Score:3, Insightful)

    by thatskinnyguy (1129515) on Wednesday December 05 2007, @11:24PM (#21593565)
    I see many many flaws with this.

    First off, Svalbard? How in the hell would anyone, if anyone exists, post-epoch get to such a remote place?

    Second, coal-powered? I mean, sure the Soviets mined it there for years and the Norwegians still do. But if we are at a point to use the doomsday seed thing, the Norwegians would have been long extinct along with the rest of the world. No coal, no perfectly conditioned environment for keeping dormant seeds.

    I've read some people offer the suggestion of solar power. That's nice and all. Except there is the nuclear winter doomsday hypothesis. So that might be out of the question.

    Nuclear power would require too much maintenance to power the refrigerators. And with no people left, totally out of the question.

    Geothermal would probably be the most reliable source of power for the facility. But that brings me to my next point...

    If there are going to be a doomsday apocalypse, why even bother with seeding the planet?

  • 20 to 30 C?? (Score:3, Funny)

    by amper (33785) * on Wednesday December 05 2007, @11:52PM (#21593733) Homepage Journal
    Wait, this place is only about 1100 km from the North Pole, and they have to run refrigeration to get the temps down to 25 degrees Celsius? Man, that global warming is brutal!

    I assume you meant to say 20 to 30 K, no?

  • I always thought that when digging that thing (Score:5, Funny)

    by dominux (731134) on Thursday December 06 2007, @03:02AM (#21594667) Homepage
    it would be rather ironic if they discovered a gigantic underground vault full of Jurassic plants left by the dinosaurs for future civilizations in the event of a large extinction event.

    • What if the doomsday involved global warming, permafrost perma-gone?
      I guess the assumption is that the "catostrophic event" doesn't render the entire earth a wasteland.

      Locally mined coal will provide power for refrigeration units
      Supreme irony!

    • Re:Summary Incomplete (Score:5, Informative)

      by Selanit (192811) on Wednesday December 05 2007, @09:16PM (#21592671)

      Crud, when I pasted that correction from the Wikipedia article, it eliminated the negative signs before the degrees. That should read "-20 to -30 C".



      Also, I've just skimmed the article, and it has little or no mooring in reality. Consider this, from fairly late in the article:

      Margaret Sanger, a rapid eugenicist, the founder of Planned Parenthood International and an intimate of the Rockefeller family, created something called The Negro Project in 1939, based in Harlem, which as she confided in a letter to a friend, was all about the fact that, as she put it, 'we want to exterminate the Negro population.'


      Holy cow! That's a pretty serious allegation. The article provides a reference at that point. But the reference is a link to somebody's Yahoo mail Inbox. Huh??? In my world, that's not an acceptable standard of evidence. Particularly since it's not even publicly available.



      I've never complained about editorial oversight on Slashdot, and it seems fairly pointless to do it now. It just seems weird that they can't even be bothered to filter out the obvious wackos.

      • Actually, if we cut them a little slack for a munged link, and for misspelling 'rabid', the article is basically correct. Sanger was a follower of Robert Malthus, who is best known for prophecying overpopulation doom. What he is less known for is his proposed solution to the alleged problem. He suggested that the 'inferior races' be prevented from expanding. Only wholesome, Anglo-Saxon christians would reproduce.

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