from the do-not-store-all-your-seeds-in-one-basket dept.
When civil war broke out in Syria, scientist Ahmed Amri immediately thought to rescue the seed bank that sat in cold storage in Aleppo:
Specifically, 141,000 packets of them sitting in cold storage 19 miles south of Aleppo. They included ancient varieties of wheat and durum dating back nearly to the dawn of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent, and one of the world’s largest collections of lentil, barley, and faba bean varieties—crops that feed millions of people worldwide every day. If these seeds were decimated, humanity could lose precious genetic resources developed over hundreds, or in some cases thousands, of years. And suddenly, with the outbreak of violence, their destruction seemed imminent.
It's rare that people consider stores of human knowledge more precious than their own lives. What knowledge would Soylentils sacrifice their own lives to save?
(Score: 4, Funny) by slinches on Saturday April 18 2015, @07:43AM
Soy and lentils.
(Score: 5, Informative) by frojack on Saturday April 18 2015, @08:02AM
There are several seed banks scattered around the world.
Wiki has a partial list here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seed_bank [wikipedia.org]
In addition many universities and agricultural schools have their own seed banks.
Some seeds last a long time, but not forever, and some of these banks have to plant some species every once in a while just to get new seeds.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @11:44AM
Wikipedia's list is incomplete. It neglects to list the seed bank between my legs.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @09:00PM
Clearly, Wikipedia's list was meant to include only those sources that won't be rejected by everyone who is made an offer.
-- gewg_
(Score: 4, Funny) by Gaaark on Saturday April 18 2015, @08:45PM
WHAT THE!!!!????!! Don't tell everyone: next thing you know, Monsanto will be suing every seed bank in the world!
Christ, man... whatwereyouthinking??????
:)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Interesting) by davester666 on Saturday April 18 2015, @08:04AM
Syria was the best place to build this installation when?
Why? The West Bank refused to have it?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @03:13PM
The "best place" is as many places as possible. Therefore the fact that it was Syria does not make it a bad choice.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Sunday April 19 2015, @03:06AM
Yes, IF the seeds were in "as many places as possible", that would be ideal for the survival of the seeds.
However, if that were true, then why would someone risk their life trying to save a single cache?
Anyway, trying to pick a good, fixed site for these seeds in that region doesn't really seem possible, at least given the history since WW II. And then with WW II, it would be a crapshoot having them anywhere.
Maybe have them in some geosynchronous satellites, and then fire some to the moon...
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday April 20 2015, @08:06PM
Since they will obviously be useful on the moon?
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fnj on Saturday April 18 2015, @08:06AM
The Middle East is an exceptionally poor choice for a location to store things like this. It is teeming with psychopaths/sociopaths. I'm not going to pretend any place is perfectly safe from evil rotten elements, but places like far northern Europe are a much better bet. Far enough north, and your refrigeration requirement is a lot cheaper to satisfy, too.
For example, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault [wikipedia.org] is on an island at latitude 78, only 1300 km from the north pole.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday April 18 2015, @09:31AM
> The Middle East is an exceptionally poor choice for a location to store things like this. It is teeming with psychopaths/sociopaths.
That's a point in their favor, actually. Which is more crazy, a place teeming with sociopaths, or another place that let people from the first place immigrate with little fuss?
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Touché) by jcross on Saturday April 18 2015, @03:02PM
Are there a lot of middle easterners on Svalbard? I had no idea.
(Score: 2, Informative) by fnj on Saturday April 18 2015, @03:46PM
I expect you know, but a lot of others might not. It's an archipelago far north of Scandinavia proper. Hardly anyone lives there. The population is 2000-odd; large majority Norwegian and most of the minority Russian and Ukrainian. Most of what goes on there is mining, research, and tourism. It is sociologically one of the safest places on the planet. There is virtually no crime. I very much doubt if you could find any disaffected parasites there.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 18 2015, @06:47PM
Which is more crazy, a place teeming with sociopaths, or another place that let people from the first place immigrate with little fuss?
A place teeming with sociopaths, of course.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aristarchus on Saturday April 18 2015, @08:25AM
Why is this even a question? Of course knowledge is more important than any individual life! That is why it is called science! I have lived much more than any mortal ought to, but it is still the same, knowledge over life. Ahmed is a hero.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @04:39PM
Why is this even a question?
Why not? Asking questions is one of the essential steps in science.
Of course knowledge is more important than any individual life!
That's up to the life holder. Only you should have the right to decide what your life is worth.
That is why it is called science!
I'm pretty sure that's not the reason.
I have lived much more than any mortal ought to
Nobody "ought to" die at any point of time, don't push your existential crisis to the rest of us.
but it is still the same, knowledge over life
Knowledge is proportional to time and effort spent, you never have to stop learning unless you decide to or become incapable of it.
Ahmed is a hero.
Heroes die first. I can't help but to see our tenancy to glorify heroism as a form of mass psychosis.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 18 2015, @06:52PM
I have lived much more than any mortal ought to
You've lived almost 2400 years. That's not very long. I think the problem here isn't the duration, but the mortal status. True immortality is probably impractical, but we should be able to make so that 2400 year life spans are not so unusual. It isn't that no one should live to 2400 years, but rather no one should be mortal in the current sense. If they want to commit suicide by old age, there ought to be better ways to do that than the current nasty and humiliating way.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @09:34PM
A number of people do it each year by accident.
Some think that they have discovered a more affordable method of heating their living space and some think that cooking indoors using outdoors equipment is a brilliant idea that no one has thought of before.
carbon.monoxide+grill [google.com]
Those who want to end it all on purpose can use that painless non-messy method by initiating the method before going to sleep.
They will simply not awaken.
To assure that the corpse is discovered before it decomposes|is found by scavengers, it is important to leave something in the environment in an an unusual state that will cause people to investigate after sunrise.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday April 19 2015, @10:15AM
That's a very dangerous claim in its generality. Note that Mengele also gained knowledge through his experiments.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @09:41AM
However, who has access? Who owns the seeds? Who owns the genes? Can you own a gene?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @10:27AM
2025: The Pirate Bay Launches "Genetics" Category For DNA Downloads
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @04:24PM
What would take ten years?
They can do it now:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/ [nih.gov]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @04:56PM
Because there's no use for it to most people. Hopefully in 10 years we'll be able to plug downloaded DNA into bacteria and wait for the results, you know, something like making a tub that produces endless morphine or mescaline. ;)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @05:08PM
LSD-excreting yeast/bacteria
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @09:48PM
We previously discussed a related topic.
Seminis (Monsanto) Uses Open [Broccoli] IP and Shades the Original Innovators' Work [soylentnews.org]
-- gewg_
(Score: 5, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Saturday April 18 2015, @03:51PM
"What knowledge would Soylentils sacrifice their own lives to save?"
Ahmed Amri didn't sacrifice his life. He risked it.
Sacrifice your life: A success of the plan will likely cost you your life.
Risk your life: A failure of the plan will likely cost you your life.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Hartree on Saturday April 18 2015, @06:01PM
Scientists take risks to get knowledge all the time. For a more mundane case, think about volcano researchers who stay close to erupting volcanoes to get measurements on the lead up to a major eruption. Mount St. Helens killed at least one of them. They try to keep the risks reasonable, but there will always be risks in studying dangerous phenomena.
Similarly, people are willing to take risks to save archives of knowledge (and seed banks). Hopefully it's a calculated risk, but sometimes, like in Aleppo, it's a pretty big one.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Saturday April 18 2015, @11:51PM
Do the seeds even work anymore (by that I mean not only whether they can germinate, but whether there still exists soil or climate conditions to support their growth)?
Cold storage is not a good way to preserve things; instead, try keeping them in circulation. Instead of storing data on cold CDs, DVDs, or hard drives, keep them on a live system (with backups, of course). Instead of storing knowledge in thick tomes that no one reads (or can read) anymore, keep that knowledge circulating in society. Instead of storing DNA in frozen seeds, keep them in actively growing plants. Things that aren't used have a tendency to become unusable surprisingly quickly.
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