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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: 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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