Happy 2025! Oof da— Have you heard about Norway’s Doomsday Vault?
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.
Never mind its grim nickname, Norway’s Crop Trust encompasses a storage vault—a kind of Noah’s Ark— for seeds. The purpose: to ensure crop survival and diversity if there’s a worldwide catastrophe.
It’s built of steel and concrete, inside a permanently frozen mountain, on a remote arctic island. It’s so cold, the foil wrapped seeds will last hundreds—maybe thousands—of years.
Seed banks aren’t unusual—there are about 1700 in the world—but many are vulnerable to political or environmental problems in their host countries. The Norwegian vault keeps duplicates of those seeds on ice, in case anything happens to the local supplies—
And you’re in the mood for beefsteak tomatoes! That’ll cheer us up!
Reference: https://www.croptrust.org/work/svalbard-global-seed-vault/