World seed Vault (a.k.a.) Doomsday vault

Ok, It's a bit old. December 2007, but I had never heard about it till two days ago when a friend showed it to me.

As I don't know how to actually display a Youtube video, I'll paste the link. It is only 3 mins, it is a clip of 60 minutes.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXW_vzQppGI"]Doomsday Vault project[/ame]

So, this vault has all the seeds of the plants we used in today's world. In one giant refrigerator. There are many organisation (including Microsoft) that have invested in this.

What strikes me is that as a civilization, our civilization has always been based on the concept of healing instead of preventing. On the other hand, this is a MAJOR step towards prevention.

Wasn't there a time capsule thread on LWS?

Someone find it in the archives.
That video is screaming fallout 3 at me.

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Originally Posted by ShitFace

Wasn't there a time capsule thread on LWS?

Someone find it in the archives.
That video is screaming fallout 3 at me.

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LWS? What is that?

After a quick internet search...what seems to be the most logical thing is [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lethal_white_syndrome"]Lethal white syndrome - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:Grazing_paints.jpg" class="image"><img alt="" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2a/Grazing_paints.jpg/220px-Grazing_paints.jpg"@@AMEPARAM@@commons/thumb/2/2a/Grazing_paints.jpg/220px-Grazing_paints.jpg[/ame]

But that is a horse disease...so that isn't it...

lethal white syndrome is correct.

As far as I'm aware, the Seed Vault is not just for the most extreme cases of global destruction. It's also to ensure that genetic diversity of crop plants is retained and to ensure that the diversity and strains of plants held in other seed banks in the world are not lost due to local civil and political instability, natural disaster, etc.

Genetic diversity is pretty crucial to ensure that crops are resistant to disease, and because of the popularity and preference of some high yield strains compared to others, we are at putting ourselves at risk due to a decrease in genetic diversity in our crop plants. Seed banks, especially this uber seed bank that is referred to here, ensure that if a disease does start to run rampant in a particular crop plant due to low genetic diversity, we will still be able to access other genetic strains of this crop plant.

I love how the presenter guy is like

"So it's a gigantic frozen vault in the arctic...


...just for seeds??"

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Originally Posted by gwahir

I love how the presenter guy is like

"So it's a gigantic frozen vault in the arctic...


...just for seeds??"

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most people like the presenter are stuck in the mindset that "food comes from the supermarket."

no seeds, no food, no life. civilization has made people morons.

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Originally Posted by sycld

As far as I'm aware, the Seed Vault is not just for the most extreme cases of global destruction. It's also to ensure that genetic diversity of crop plants is retained and to ensure that the diversity and strains of plants held in other seed banks in the world are not lost due to local civil and political instability, natural disaster, etc.

Genetic diversity is pretty crucial to ensure that crops are resistant to disease, and because of the popularity and preference of some high yield strains compared to others, we are at putting ourselves at risk due to a decrease in genetic diversity in our crop plants. Seed banks, especially this uber seed bank that is referred to here, ensure that if a disease does start to run rampant in a particular crop plant due to low genetic diversity, we will still be able to access other genetic strains of this crop plant.

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True, I will come in handy in this perspective. They did have a problem back in the day with their corn having such low genetic diversity they lost all the crops to a disease and had to go back to the original crops in Mexico to gain back some diversity in order for the corn to survive.

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Originally Posted by Kealran

LWS? What is that?

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I hereby nominate this for the best post of CD.2 so far.