Category: Uncategorized

GENE VAULTS "vast buildings devoted to preserving the seeds of as many plants as possible, partly for scientific research and partly to hedge our bets as more and more plants go extinct ... the Svalbard "Doomsday" Seed Vault, are designed to withstand global catastrophe..." http://lnkd.in/dyTsvR9 View in LinkedIn

"THE SVALBARD SEED VAULT has the capacity to store 4,5 million different seed samples ... a maximum of 2,25 billion seeds may be stored ... will therefore have the capacity to hold all the unique seed samples that are conserved today by all the approximately 1400 genebanks ... all over the world." http://www.regjeringen.no/mobil/en/dep/lmd/campain/svalbard-global-seed-vault/frequently-asked-questions.html?id=462221 View in LinkedIn

20% OF MODERN PLANTS FACE EXTINCTION. "Little is known about the state of many plant species. Every fifth plant species is threatened with extinction, which means the world's plants are as much at risk of dying out as mammals." http://lnkd.in/duQti62 View in LinkedIn

DOOMSDAY GENE VAULT. "More than 20,000 crops from more than 100 nations have arrived at a "Doomsday vault" in the Arctic Circle. The purpose of the depository ... is to store duplicates of all seed samples from crop collections around the world." http://lnkd.in/dUyYDfz View in LinkedIn

SIXTH MASS-EXTINCTION. "In the worst one, 250 million years ago, 96 percent of marine species and 70 percent of land species died off. It took millions of years to recover. Nowadays, many scientists are predicting that we're on track for a sixth" "mass extinction. The world's species already seem to be vanishing at an unnaturally rapid rate." http://lnkd.in/dVjRnmw View in LinkedIn

GENETIC MATERIAL BANKS include seed banks for plant seeds; tissue banks for buds and parts of asexual plants; cryobanks for seeds and embryos; field gene banks; sperm and Iva banks; biobanks; biological databases; and coral gene banks. And others. These are all conservation efforts to preserve genetic material. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_bank View in LinkedIn

EXTINCTIONS. "Since AD 1500, 784 extinctions have been documented. However, since most extinctions are likely to go undocumented ... during the last century, between 20,000 and two million species have become extinct ... Up to 140,000 species per year may be the present rate of extinction." http://lnkd.in/dj_r4ry View in LinkedIn

PRESERVED AND REVIVED GENETIC MATERIAL is the topic for the next focus of blogs. Since nature's incredible evolutionary experiment of genetic diversity took billions of years to develop the current set of plants and animals, it is an enormous genetic and experimental loss when any of these species disappears. This is a peek at this field. http://lnkd.in/dCng3zh View in LinkedIn

DIMINISHING DIVERSITY. "The Holocene extinction event is a name customarily given to the widespread, ongoing mass extinction of species during the modern Holocene epoch ... This extinction event is sometimes referred to as the sixth extinction following the previous five extinction events." http://lnkd.in/dj_r4ry View in LinkedIn

KEEP THE EYE ON THE BALL. We have probably all had a bellyful of the misdeeds of an expedient military culture. No single country appears to be much more blames than the other. One purpose of this extended exercise was to put in riveting and memorable context the relative innocence of our garage biopunk biologists. View in LinkedIn