4/15/2023 0 Comments Doomsday vault moonBut today, farmers are planting mass-produced industrial seeds. Seeds used to be passed down through families. Scientist Cary Fowler offers an example: of the 7,100 varieties of apples that existed in the 19th century, only 300 remain “the extinction rate for apple varieties in the United States is about 86 percent.” There’s a reason that “extinction exists in all crops. The SGSV is also a hedge against extinction, which isn’t something that may happen in the future, but is happening now. ![]() The treasure the vault holds is too precious to risk: seeds, collected from all over the world, over a period of seventy years-1.5 billion of them, enough to reseed agriculture, should a Doomsday event occur. The vault is so cold that it will remain frozen for a quarter of a century, even if power to the refrigeration that maintains temperatures below those of the permafrost that covers the vault should fail. the sun never rises, and the moon never sets.”Ī huge, wedge-shaped entrance leads into the side of a mountain and into the Doomsday vault, which is built to last 10,000 years. The residents of Longyearbyen, the closest settlement, number just over two thousand. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault (SGSV), administered by Norway, is located on icy islands, known as Svalbard, or the “cold coast.” As might be expected, this region of the world is sparsely populated. Whatever befalls us on Doomsday, survivors will have food to eat, cultural artifacts to treasure, sweet treats to enjoy, and maybe even pets to pamper.ġ0 Highly Guarded Vaults 10 Svalbard Global Seed Vault ![]() We have built vast storage vaults in the arctic and elsewhere, and scientists hope to build yet another one, underground, on the moon. ![]() Culture, beneficial bacteria, and cookies should survive, too. We’re ready, though, or as ready as we can be, at least where food supplies are concerned. Any number of catastrophic events could bring Doomsday upon us. A stray meteor on a collision course with Earth. “What amazes me about projects like this is that they make me feel like we are getting closer to becoming a space civilization, and to a not-very-distant future where humankind will have bases on the moon and Mars.Global or nuclear war. Álvaro Díaz-Flores Caminero, a UArizona doctoral student, addedDo: Nevertheless, the scientists are hopeful that this project would bring humanity a step closer to becoming “a space civilization.” Understandably, there are many factors that are yet to be discussed and challenges to be overcome. Because human civilization has such a large footprint, if it were to collapse, that could have a negative cascading effect on the rest of the planet.” Credits: NASA As humans, we had a close call about 75,000 years ago with the Toba supervolcanic eruption, which caused a 1,000-year cooling period and, according to some, aligns with an estimated drop in human diversity. “Earth is naturally a volatile environment. Jekan Thanga, a professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering at the University of Arizona College of Engineering, insisted: However, the Arizona experts are clear that such a step is necessary for the future of mankind. The scientists fear that such low temperatures could cause metal parts of the base to freeze. Meanwhile, stem cells need a temperature of -320☏ (-195.5☌). They note that to be cryopreserved, seeds must be cooled to -292☏ (-180☌). ![]() UArizona researcher Jekan Thanga's ambitious, Noah's Ark-inspired project aims to preserve humankind – and animal-kind, plant-kind and fungi-kind – in the event of a global crisis. The scientists explained that the storehouse would be accessed by elevator shafts that would lead to the main facility, where all of the millions of samples would be stored.Īccording to the specialists, the construction of the vault would be dependent on how advanced cryo-robotics technology is. The “modern global insurance policy” would be powered by solar panels. They plan to hide the vault in a network of about 200 tubes discovered in 2013, which are believed to have carried streams of lava that melted through the soft rock to form the underground tunnels billions of years ago.Īccording to the researchers, the tubes could be the perfect place for preserving the samples, as they would protect the depository from solar radiation, surface temperature changes, and micrometeorites.
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