Chapter 634 Doomsday Library
Snow.
Very thick snow.
The door of the safe at the end of the corridor was covered with frost. Bifang reached out and touched the wall, feeling the snowflakes that had turned into ice crystals. The astonishing coldness passed through his fingertips to his palms, as if it was going to freeze his blood.
When Bifang took his hand away, the area between his fingertips and the frost had frozen, with broken ice crystals and a layer of white frost remaining on it.
The temperature here is even lower than outside.
And behind this large iron door covered with frost is the real seed warehouse.
The numerous checkpoints allowed everyone to see what true layers of defense are.
The iron gate opened, and visible cold frost floated out. The cold wind poured into the tunnel, making Bifang squint his eyes. After a moment, the light and shadow became clear, and he could see the real scene inside this Noah's Ark.
big.
Very big.
Like a giant warehouse.
A room the size of an oversized conference room is lined with supermarket-like shelves, and boxes on each shelf contain seed samples from various countries.
Bifang walked in rows, from Europe to Asia, from Norway to China, and each seed bag was filled with information.
"Seeds from each country are packed in several large boxes. Seed samples from each country are transported to the island by air, some in wooden boxes and some in paper boxes. After delivery, the box samples are X-rayed and will not be opened."
Barritt took Bifang and moved between the "shelves", introducing them one by one.
"The samples were mostly packaged in foil bags, with 200 to 300 seeds in each bag."
"The seed bank stores backup samples. Each institution has physical samples stored locally. These institutions are also seed banks built by various countries. However, due to natural disasters and man-made disasters, they need to be backed up in the Doomsday Seed Bank."
[Have the seeds here been used? ]
[Are you stupid? This is the Doomsday Seed Vault. When did you encounter the Doomsday? ]
An audience member raised a question, but someone immediately objected.
Bifang relayed this question to Barrett, but unexpectedly got a positive answer from Barrett .
These seeds have been used once since construction.
The audience was silent for a while.
[Hiss, can’t we hide what happened in 1999?]
[Stop broadcasting, stop broadcasting quickly!! Do you want to become a sinner of mankind? ]
[Forgot, memetic contamination is about to appear]
[Shut up, you signed a confidentiality agreement, don't say anything more! ]
"The construction of this doomsday warehouse began in 2005 and was completed and put into use in 2008. It was not used at all in 1999." Bifang said seriously.
Barritt was a little confused. He looked at the comments, which were in both Chinese and English. But even in English, he didn't recognize the words when put together. What happened in 1999?
I think I was only nine years old at that time?
"What are you talking about?"
"It's just a joke." Bifang was quite embarrassed.
"Okay." Barritt shrugged and didn't care. He continued, "The one used was Yu Youli, who was still in the civil war."
"The civil war in September 2015 caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and forced about 11 million people to become refugees. During the war, the main seed bank in Aleppo in the Middle East was destroyed and could no longer be used."
"This war has forced Yu Youli to take out seeds from the 'Doomsday Seed Vault' for the first time. Their researchers have applied to us to take out nearly 130 boxes of the 325 boxes of 116,000 crop seeds 'backups' previously stored here, for planting and reshaping agriculture."
"That was the first and only time since the World Seed Vault was built."
The netizens were shocked. It turned out to be Yu Youli who won?
"This seed bank contains seeds that have been seen and harvested in the past 2,000 years of human agricultural civilization development history. They are the fruits and crystallization of farmers' hard work over the past thousands of years. They are linked to our past and future agricultural development."
Yu Youli's pressure made everyone realize that it was very necessary to build a seed bank.
"Each warehouse can store 1.5 million samples. Currently, only one library is open for use, and the rest are still closed ."
"In addition to food, there are also many backup seeds of rare plants."
"Our aim is to provide a safety net against accidental losses of species diversity in the event of a global or regional event."
"It functions like a safety deposit box in a bank, allowing specialized organizations or governments to hold seeds for 'deposit' that only they have access to."
"So in theory, no tourists are allowed to visit this place. In history, only one journalist has ever visited this place. Mr. Bifang can be said to be the second one."
Barritt looked up at the drone in the air and smiled.
[Boss Fang has a lot of face! ]
[Envy, when can I have this treatment...]
[You must first have a recognized, meaningful, and widely circulated world first title, and then have a considerable political identity, and at the same time have symbolic significance in some aspects, and have made many groundbreaking moves that shocked the world, and that should be enough. ]
[I’m…]
[Slowly type a question mark]
[What is Fang Shen's political identity? ]
【Lao Fang is a school official】
As time went by, although Bifang was not deliberately used as a gimmick, his identity in this regard had already spread.
In order to facilitate security checks when boarding a plane, everyone gradually became aware of it and was aware of the situation.
[I almost forgot that Lao Fang is still a school officer...]
[Fuck you, look at her when she was 25, then look at me, I won’t say any more, I’ll go to sleep for a while, I’ll have all kinds of dreams]
The entire warehouse is huge and very cold.
It's nearly ten degrees cooler than outside.
Various sensors and cameras are also installed in the seed bank, which can be monitored remotely in real time.
Bifang saw with his own eyes that a camera was following their movements.
"In fact, there are more than 1,700 gene banks in the world, but many of them have safety risks. For example, the seed banks in Afghanistan and Iraq were completely destroyed, and the Feilibing was damaged by natural disasters such as typhoons."
“Natural disasters and man-made disasters may cause the destruction of rare collections, which is similar to the extinction of dinosaurs. Once they are gone, they are gone forever. It is precisely because we recognize the fragility of the world's gene banks that we have the idea of building the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.”
Barritt's words were full of confidence.
Although the temperature in the room is not high, the "Doomsday Seed Vault" is still equipped with a cooling device to ensure that the temperature of the seed vault remains at minus 18 degrees Celsius, so that the seeds can be preserved for a long time, theoretically for thousands of years.
"From a functional design perspective, the seed bank can withstand most natural and man-made disasters, including the impact of an asteroid impact or a nuclear war."
"At the same time, its remote geographical location also adds a lot to its safety. This is the archipelago closest to the Arctic. There is no place more desolate and remote than here."
Barritt talked as he walked, which amazed the audience in the live broadcast room.
