A story of heroism and the ultimate sacrifice during the the 900-day Siege of Leningrad during the Second World War. I think it is safe to say we all benefit from the sacrifice these men made.
https://www.amusingplanet.com/2018/08/the-scientists-who-starved-to-death.html
As the invading German army poured into the city looting and destroying anything of value, a group of Russian botanists holed up inside the vault of the Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry with a precious collection of seeds and edible plants. This collection, containing seeds from nearly 200,000 varieties of plants of which about a quarter was edible, constituted one of the world's largest repositories of the genetic diversity of food crops. Among them were plenty of rice, wheat, corn, beans and potatoes, enough to sustain the botanists and see them through the worst days of the siege.
But the scientists hadn't barricaded themselves in the vault with food grains to save their lives, but rather to protect these seeds from the Nazis as well as from the starving people plundering through the streets in search for anything to eat.
The collection filled 16 rooms, in which no one was allowed to remain alone. Workers guarded the storage in shifts all round the clock, numb with cold and emaciated from hunger. As the siege dragged out, one by one these heroic men started dying of hunger, but not a single grain was eaten. In January 1942, Alexander Stchukin, a peanut specialist, died at his writing table. Botanist Dmitri Ivanov also died of starvation while surrounded by several thousand packs of rice that he was guarding. By the end of the siege in the Spring of 1944, nine of them had starved to death watching over all that food. Many of the crops that we eat today came from cross-breeding with varieties the scientists saved from destruction.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @09:56AM (4 children)
Good to hear once in a while something else than 'Russia is fake news, folks'
(Score: 3, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday August 21 2018, @10:16AM (3 children)
Well it's not Russia in this case, it's the Soviet Union. All news from the Soviet Union was definitely real.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @10:48AM
Of course it was comrade, these days we have the NYT, CBC and BBC to give us the peoples truth. [thenation.com]
Sing along now; United forever in friendship and labor, Our mighty Republics will ever endure...
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday August 21 2018, @07:34PM (1 child)
Leningrad was in the Russian part of Soviet Union. Beautiful city and used to be the capital of Russia. When they had kings and a HUGE empire. But, get this, the Palace is only three stories tall. I took a look at it, I said, I can do much better. Because I'd done much better in America. My hotel was going to be the tallest in the city, with tremendous views!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @10:26PM
rDT: Are you a bot?
Also, do you know ELIZA? She speaks very much as you do. Maybe you share the same ancestral line?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @11:37AM
All of the workers also keep the secret while their families and friends were starving. That, to me, was the harder and more commendable sacrifice. These workers really believed in the absolute and unambiguous good of what they did.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Gaaark on Tuesday August 21 2018, @11:52AM (12 children)
Compare that with Monsanto/Bayer being willing to lose it all for a dollar.
Sad.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @12:36PM (8 children)
With their monoculture crops, Monsanto only needs a handful of seeds to keep their gene pool stocked. These guys protected biodiversity, that's why these seeds are/were so valuable.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Gaaark on Tuesday August 21 2018, @02:00PM (7 children)
Yes, but they also plant seeds next to a farmer's field and when there is cross pollination they sue the farmer for stealing their IP.
They also kill bees and other insects with Roundup.
Anything for a dollar.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Tuesday August 21 2018, @02:56PM (4 children)
No, they aren't that stupid to kill insects with a herbicide.
They are using neonicotinoids for this purpose - and Bayer needs to expand the market in other places now that EU banned the three main ones for outdoor uses [theguardian.com].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by tfried on Tuesday August 21 2018, @08:27PM (1 child)
Except, they do. Ok, granted. Killing insects is not the point of a herbicide, but wide-spread use of herbicides is still a major problem to insects by degrading their habitat. Few insects can survive in a monoculture (and those that can will typically cause problems, but hey, we have insecticides for that).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @10:28PM
Grandpa's Scourge: Boll Weevils in the Cotton!
(Score: 3, Informative) by edIII on Tuesday August 21 2018, @11:45PM
Don't be too sure. This was the same company that believed it could research death codes and embed DRM directly into the crops. They did this research in crops with no biocontainment procedures whatsoever. It's pure hubris to believe we've come that far with genetic engineering, that we could risk such lines of research in the first place. Real bioweapon research is conducted with a bit more restraint and care than Monsanto demonstrates.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1) by Goghit on Wednesday August 22 2018, @05:11AM
I'm not so sure. Glyphosate (Roundup) herbicide can bugger up the biochemical pathways found in micro-organisms. More and more research is telling us that micro-organisms have vital roles in keeping anything with a gut functioning properly.
The hot new thing is to use Roundup to "field dry" non-GMO crops - basically when it's ripe the farmer sprays the crop like it's a weed, lets it fall over and dessicate in the field, then harvests it and processes the bean or grain out of the stalks immediately - quicker, easy, and less barn space required.
Yes, they are that stupid, and yeah, we're fucked.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @08:38PM (1 child)
I used to think the same, but when I looked more into the case I realized that he was in fact willfully using their seeds without paying. The amount of crops he had with the roundup resistant gene were far higher than simple cross-pollination would have caused. I still believe Monsanto is ridiculously greedy and corrupt, but in this case, it looks like it was legit.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Wednesday August 22 2018, @09:00PM
That's of course if you believe that something like seeds you harvest from your crops do not belong to you. If he harvested the seeds on his property, why should he not be able to use them?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @02:14PM (1 child)
I don't think they'd be satisfied with a single dollar.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @03:03PM
Whatever the market pays, no?
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Wednesday August 22 2018, @04:03AM
Emphasis added
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by iWantToKeepAnon on Tuesday August 21 2018, @07:14PM (1 child)
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @07:41PM
Um, how do you think someone could "reproduce" a variety they didn't have?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 22 2018, @07:00AM (1 child)
They were probably scared of the Commissars, the NKVD which contained mostly jews in all high positions.
They had seen what happens to common people when the NKVD (jewish murderers) torture them. Their stomachs are cut open and internal organs are pulled out. The botanists were non-jewish it seems and also had honor to save for their non-jewish brethren of the world the grains that would keep them from starving.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 22 2018, @06:37PM
The Jews were purged from the NKVD during the Great purge [wikipedia.org] circa '38.
Following Trotsky's assassination in '40 by an NKVD agent, the Politburo extended the exclusion of Jews from government and fired - through a 30 days notice letter or a 7.62×25 lead bullet - most remaining Jews from the ranks.
FYI, the siege started in '41...