March 18, 2026 • 22 mins
Want to hear something weird about an under-ice lair that could save humanity?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
Hey, Ray, Hey Chagan, would you like to hear something
weird about a doomsday vault?
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Wow, yes, my favorite. Actually, no, this will be your favorite.
I can guarantee it. It's specifically a doomsday vault full
of seeds.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Oh, I think I know about this one.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
You know, I think I know about this one from
reading World Dark Shore.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
But yes, that's exactly. I feel like we've had this conversation.
I think you told me about that book. Then I
think that we discussed this, but it was a while ago.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Yes, it was a while ago.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
Oh, and I've always wanted to do some research into
the real doomsday seed vault. But it looks like you've
done it. Thank you, taking You're so welcome.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Ray. This is called this Valbard Global Seed Vault.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
I'm sorry I'm going to be butcher that name, but
its basis Svalbard is island that's very close to the
North Pole. And the reason I say it specifically like that.
And I don't know if we have any listeners that
are also chronically online. There is this amazing, amazing TikToker
called Cecilia, and her whole thing is my name is Cecilia.
(01:19):
I live in a salbad an island close to the
North Pole. Like that's her whole intro, and she talks
about life on this island because there's a lot of
interesting things about Svalbard, which we will get to, but
one of the big things is that it's the home
of this doomsday vault that is full of seeds.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
In a bunker cove deep into a frozen mountain to.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Basically keep us alive if things went bad.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
I love this concept, and I also love the idea
of who gets to decide what seeds go in this vault,
because there's no way it could hold every seed for
every plant that we have on this planet.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Probably not, but it does have a red hot go
at it because in the bunker currently, I believe there
are about one point three million samples of seeds from
almost every country on Earth, So I do believe that's
part of it is that countries can send seeds and
things like that, so you're going to have things like
your wheat, rice, barley, beans, corned potato, things that will
(02:21):
keep humans fed. Yes, it's basically kind of like a
global library, but instead of books, it's for seeds.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
I love this as well, because there are now local
seed libraries that operate like book library.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yes, and you can go along.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
And you can like swap your seeds and you save
them from your garden. And like, I think that that's
such a lovely concept. So to have a global version
of this, yeah, it's pretty extraordinary, and I.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Think it's also very necessary, not even just to protect
humanity if we needed to replant, but I mean, you
would have seen this, there's no way that you haven't.
Just the amount of discourse has been lately around the
gardening communities and online and things like that about all
of these heirloom varietils of even things like apples and
(03:09):
tomatoes and things like that, that it is lost or.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
People just don't know about it.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
That's why there's all these sort of things about how, hey,
this apple like used to literally tastes like candy or
whatever it happens to be, because that's what used to exist.
But because we've become so globalized rather than localized without eating,
all of those local varietals just get lost unless people
keep them going.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
And there are a lot of passionate people that are
committed to saving those heirloom seeds.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
I know there's specific varieties.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
The Jonathan apples, for instance, grow really well in the
upper Blue Mountains, and quite a lot of people will
have a Jonathan apple tree in their front yard or
backyard because it was planted one hundred years ago, because
the local community then was really passionate about having this
apple as their local apple. But it's not a variety
that grows well at scale commercially.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
So you're not going to see it, is right.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
It's not a variety that's going to be producing the
most fruit or be the most resilient of maybe not
being pollinated as much as it could have been, as
we're seeing a lack of bees. So there is a
tendency to favor those varieties that can produce more bang feebuck,
which makes perfect sense for farmers. You know, if you're
growing apples, you want to be able to sell as
(04:22):
many apples as possible. If you've got poorer performing varieties,
it's not really going to be a priority for you,
especially when they take the same amount of resources to
get that apple to market, but you're not getting.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
As much for it.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
So yeah, to have communities who are committed to those
heirloom seeds.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
I'm growing heirloom tomatoes. Yes, my god.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
The most fun thing. I did that when I you
still lived at home a million years ago, and I
don't think I knew what a tomato was meant to
taste like until I grew things like black tomatoes and
green and yellow and get it actually do like fried
green tomatoes and things like that.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
The big, chunky, ugly ones, the ones that don't look
like perfect children's book drawings of fruit and vegetables. They're
the ones that you see less of now, but they're
the ones that taste the best. Right. It's like, how
if you're not the hot popular girl at school, you
have to develop a personality.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Yeah, that's what.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
These fruits have done. They've developed better flavor. They're like, hey, look,
I know I'm not much to look at, but you
gotta taste me.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Yeah. I would also argue that you see that.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
I mean, I see this in your Instagram stories, but
like all the time that when you have those this
little a plate that has like a few little bits
of like different types of tomatoes and there different sheets
and maybe they're like a little bit munted or whatever,
they look beautiful together.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
I love it so much.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
It makes me feel like the most wholesome person on
the planet, just having these tomatoes. I might have some
that have ripened on the vine, where I might have
some that have just changed color, and I want to
protect them from whatever bugs are around, or if there's
a big blood of rain coming, I'm scared that they
might split open if they get too much water, so
I bring them inside to ripen on the windows sill.
I just look at it and go, this is so wholesome.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
This is living.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
This is living.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
That's like, you know, some people have goals to have
like super yots and be flying around the world in
private jets and be rich and famous.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
I just want various varieties.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Of tomatoes I've grown in my garden to be ripening
on my windows sill.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
I've got that taken.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Because you've had time to do it. That's real richness,
I think it is.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
It is. Thank you. I am rich. You're rich in.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Varietals of tomatoes. We're we talking about, Oh, yes, seed vaults.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Seed seed a seed vault on a remote island near
the north Yes.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Okay, So how does it work?
Speaker 1 (06:42):
So yeah, countries and research centers around the world will
send copies of the most important seeds to your point. Like,
who decides it's important, I would say, to be able
to plant to save humanity. But basically these seeds are
sealed in special moisture proof packets and then they're stored
in giant free is a minus eighteen degrees celsius. And
so the idea is that if something wipes out crops
(07:05):
in the real world, disease, war, natural disaster, climate change,
all of that sort of thing. I think I even
saw that even if there was a really badly managed
national seed bank, because those do exist as well, that
there is a backup in the Arctic, so like a
control z.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
So you know, if there's a country that happens to
have quite a poor leader isn't very good at understanding
how the world works, how the planet works, and they
mess things up, there is a global contingency for that.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Exactly right, exactly, Thanks science, Thank you science.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
I don't know what it could be possibly talking about
in the modern context of maybe needing that.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Nothing at all. I've said nothing.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
I've said nothing, and it's talking in generalizations. Absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
So the volt's not that old.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
So it was officially open in two thousand and eight,
but the idea behind it is much older because scientists,
unsurprisingly You've been worried for decades about what we were
just talking about crop diversity loss. So over time, you know,
we've stopped growing all of these varietals and we only
rely that's the danger of relying on those very small
number of commercial crops that, yes, at scale, it makes sense,
(08:15):
you know, for profit and farmers, but when something's really efficient,
it's also really risky. So that's kind of part of
the problem. So if you know, a disease hits one
major strain of wheat or rice, what do you do exactly?
Speaker 3 (08:26):
You're in a global food crisis.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
That's why I always plant different varieties of everything that
I've got in my garden, and I've got them all
mixed together, and if they perform really well, then I
save one of the best fruits and I save the seeds.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Absolutely yeah, plant them the next year.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
I'm like, that performs well in my area, but it's
still never the only variety that I grow. It's not
going to happen, so I will end up with all
like hybrids as well, because one one will get pollinated
from the pollen from another plant.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
You're looking at this weird egg eggplant thing going. I'm
not sure this is a real fruit. You what are
you gonna taste like? It's not poison. Let's go for it.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
So the whole idea was to create this ultrasecure neutral,
long term backup for the planet where seeds can survive
even if those local seed banks were destroyed. And it
was funded by the Norwegian government and built in partnership
with an international organization called the Crop Trust, which is
very cool. But the reason that they chose Smarbards specifically
(09:27):
was for some pretty fun reasons, quite nerdy, but I think,
like you you'll understand this. So number one, it's a
natural freezer, you know, between Norway and the North Pole, so.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
Under ice like, you don't need electricity to run this thing, right.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
That's exactly my next point that if power failed completely,
they will naturally stay cold for decades. They're fine. It's
a the mountain is a big fridge, essentially.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
I love that, which is good.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Other things is also it's very geologically stable as well,
so they don't really get major earthquakes. There's no volcanoes,
there no tectonic drama.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Essentially good.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
It's a boring, solid Arctic island where there's not a
lot of people around.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Yeah, which would make it incredibly boring for the scientists
who have to go there and manage that vault as well.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Yeah, unless you really love the area, which some people do,
like people that choose to live on f Fabar, like
they really love that area because it's so isolated.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Ultimate introvert job. No one talk to me.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
I'm managing my seeds, giantizing seeds, my giant seed vault.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
I just saw like your eyes like that, like I
do I want this?
Speaker 4 (10:38):
My eyes just lit up at the idea of like
alphabetizing and categorizing a seed vault in a freezer in
a mountain by myself.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
There's yeah, I think get stick on podcasts on.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
I get through so many audiobooks taken.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
I know you would.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Another reason is geopolitical, So Norway is because that technically
Father Blood comes under the Norwegian government.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Very calm and neutral as far as.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Countries go, very chill, literally in so many ways, they're chill,
very unlikely to be invaded or bombed or collapsed into chaos.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Unless someone wants those seeds. I'm starting to get worried.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Everyone wants those seeds. They're going after the seeds.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Also, it's really dry, so really well above sea level.
You know, there's obviously you could have some melting ice
scenarios with climate change, but it's it's designed to survive
rising oceans and extreme weather.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
In those I am imagining a future scenario where it's
like cool.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
So now the seed vault's melting.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Shit, we don't like that.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
That's bleak.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Yeah, let's not talk about that. I don't like that.
Let's keep it.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
No dark thoughts, no dark thoughts.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
No, just nice thoughts.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
And to your point about researchers, the other reason why
this was a good place is that it already had
a small research community and an airport.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Do you able to get into so they had infrastructure.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Oh yeah, of course.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Airport's important because the idea of using those big ice
breaker ships to get to places is horrific. So if
I ever want to visit this place, I'm going by plane.
I'm not getting in one of those boats. No one
can make me get on those boats.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
You don't have to. Rate's okay. I won't make you,
thank you, I won't make you. We can just go
visit the seed bubble normally in a plane. That's really fine.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Can you visit it? Do they allow tourists?
Speaker 1 (12:21):
I don't think you can go into it. You can
go up to it, because I've seen Cecilia do it.
Like you're not getting you're definitely getting in. And that's
my next point, because you're about all right, So this
is what you would need to do. I'll overcome if
you wanted to storm the seed lot ray.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Yeah, what kind of scientists do I want to be.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Exactly exactly A hot one that has a laser that
can break into things apparently.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
So there's massive.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Steel doors, it's air locked, they have motion sensors, reinforce tunnels,
climate controlled chambers, and like I said, if it's designed
to withstand earthquakes.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
And war and bombs and things like that, it's pretty
a Q. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
And to your question before about how much can we
get in there, it can fit up to four point
five million seed varieties, so it's not even like anywhere
near it capacity. No, So go and try and drop
some of your varietals off ray, like I've got these
smato seeds.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
I wonder how that compares with how many species we
have on Earth, because obviously food is going to be
the priority here. But I even think about in my
own garden, I've got non edible plants that grow because
they are companion plants of God do grow so they
attract certain pollinators or they emit gases that deal with pests.
(13:40):
So the idea of one plant being more important than
the other, it doesn't make sense when you're looking at
an ecosystem hollictoity.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Which I hope the scientists are probably taking that into account,
one would hope.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Look, I'm sure they know more about it than I do.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Realize, did you know that?
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Like, did you know.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
About companion planting? Have you heard of? And they're looking
at me.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Going, who are you?
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Please leave?
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Please please please leave? Go talk to the TikToker.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Do you want to hear something fun that happened with
the seed vault in twenty fifteen?
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Sure our country has already used it?
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Oh oh oh oh no.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
No no, no, Like, okay, I'm like, which countries ecosystem
is collapsing to?
Speaker 3 (14:28):
What are you going to surprise you?
Speaker 1 (14:30):
But in twenty fifteen, scientists from Syria withdrew some seeds
from the vault because their local seed banks got destroyed
in civil wars.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Yes, of course.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
They then go to Svahbard, recover lost crop varieties and
restart the research and etcetera, all of that.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Yeah, Oh that's incredible.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
So we'd be able to it would be able to
assist with the recovery of countries that have been in
war and already has Oh that's yeah. I just had
this gut moment of being able to regrow olive trees
in Gaza.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Yeah, that would be so important.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Oh gosh, how good is it this exists. You're making
me feel feelings about seeds like.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
I know, I know, I'm not sorry about it.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
No, thank you for bringing this into my life. You
are so welcome.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
I have a couple of extra quick things if you
want to learn about So this is not about the
seed Vault, but there's some really fun, weird facts about
Svalbard if you want to hear them. So, because it
is this very small island, quite small population, people build
cabins and things like that.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
You can get jobs there. There's towns or a main town,
but you know, not a lot of people there. So
there are some interesting rules around living there. So for example,
like you can just live there. You don't need to
have a visa. You can just go there and live
there as long as you have the means to support yourself.
So you could go and move there if you wanted
to as an Australian, that's no problem.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
I'm getting used to the colder.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
I reckon I could go be there for a little
a little while.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
I would miss people, But how good would that be?
Speaker 1 (16:08):
I mean, like, for example, to go back to Cilia,
Like she's a photographer and obviously now has this content
creating career and she does that with no problem from
this remote island.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Which is cool. So like the infrastructure is there to
be able to work online and what have you.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
So birth is not exactly illegal there, but it's very
much discouraged to give.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Birth there because there's no maternity ward.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
That is not a sentence. I thought it would come
out of your mouth. Yeah, it's not illegal there, but
it is discouraged. Yeah okay, yeah, all right, Oh well yeah,
not having the facilities to be able to care for
certain type of health conditions makes perfect sense.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
You get that in remote areas in Australia.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
So yeah, exactly, you get women that are about to
give birth moved from say East anam Land to Darwin
because there isn't the hospital services there to be able
to account for it.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
So yeah, that makes perfect sense.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yeah, and the same thing here, you'll get sent to
Norway before you give it. Making it illegal makes sense
because also sometimes you're going to leave it early.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
They're not going to then criminalize something someone for that.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
They're not going to find you or put you in prison.
They're just going to be like, hey, could you maybe
not do this because it's not safe?
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Yeah, I mean what sort of country, what sort of
modern country would you know, fine, or you know, put
someone in jail for things that you.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
Can't help around childbirth? Who would do that?
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Tigan taken.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
That's just not what a modern country would do.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
No, that's something from The Handmaids.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Sure, that's not real. Yeah, why would you do that?
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Definitely not real. I read nineteen eighty four the other
day that.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
I had that go good. I've read that sence as
a teenager.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Yeah, you should give it another read.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
I'm already so depressed. Right, it's a.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Very short book. That's why they gave it to us
in high school? How did we get onto this from seeds?
Seeds are delightful, it's great.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Sorry, we're talking about smile Bud.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
Thank you, thank you for telling me about the seed bank.
It's made my life better.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah, okay, okay, all right. Another weird fact of what
is illegal one's farbard is that you're not supposed to
die there. Oh so because you can't be buried there. Yeah,
and for a reason. And again when you hear it,
you're like, I didn't know that sentence was going to exist.
But when you think about it, it makes sense, which
is the ground is permanently frozen, so bodies won't decompose. Yeah,
(18:16):
it's like Everest, Yeah, exactly, slightly less horrifying than Everest.
So there are still apparently their old grays from the
early nineteen hundreds that contain perfectly preserved remains.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Of course they'd be perfectly preserved.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
But it also means preserved viruses potentially. Oh this makes
a lot of sense. It's like, you know what, we're
not putting more bodies in the ground.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Yeah, what did they die for? Probably tuberculosis? Everyone dies
from tuberculosis back in the.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Day, right, Yeah, yep.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
Yeah, So if the ice melts, these tb infested bodies
are going to float to the surface and affect all
the people working at the seed.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Bank exactly, and our TikToker. Yeah, and Cecilia exactly. So
similar to birth that if you're terminally ill, you're gonna
get flown to Norway essentially.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Yeah, makes sense.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
No one as to die, but if you do die there,
it's not ideal.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Yeah, exactly a couple of other quick things.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
If you're going to leave the main town, you need
a gun, like you're required to carry gun exactly.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Yeah, yeah, oh there we go.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Makes me sad, but I get it because protection because.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
It's in the Arctic, which means bears, instead of the Antarctic,
which means no bears, no bes.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
And it's a coincidence. Did you know that it's all.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
Tell me about that polar bears in the Arctic. Of policy,
it's not named after the actual bears. It's named after
Ursa Major, the constellation and whether.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Or not you can see it.
Speaker 4 (19:40):
So in the Arctic you can see Ursa Major, which
is known in some cultures as the bear. In the
Antarctic you can't, So bears, no bears, but it also
just happens that the animal is.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
There and it's the constellation of the bear.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
It's one of those things that doesn't seem like it
would make sense. But it's an incredible coincidence.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
I love. That's so good.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Another thing that's animal related that cats are banned, so
you can't have cats to protect the local bird species,
which makes a lot of.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Sense, makes perfect sense, yep.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
And another one that will not surprise you because again
you know it's the North Pole essentially, is that you
get four full months of darkness, you get polar nite.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Oh yeah, I would die of depression. That would I
would be like, fly me to where the hospital is pleased.
I'm ready to go.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Yeah, all I was going to bring a cat in.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
No, but then you've also got like the months and
months and months of just eternal sun as well.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Yeah, where you wouldn't be able to sleep yet.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
No, Yeah, my my desire to go to this place
is declining.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
We could go when it's a bit like more not
polar nighty for.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
You, if you like, Yeah, is there a middle time
of the year.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Kind of yeah, ideal, Like, yeah, there's sort of times
where I know that at the moment, at least a
few weeks ago, because again, Cecilia, that you're starting to
instead of just the polar night some more blue was
starting to come in as things were getting a little
bit more towards the warmer months and things like that.
So I think if you pick that sweet spot, you're
still probably going to get more of one than the
(21:07):
other with the night versus day, but you'll get a
loose a little bit more of.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Like a sunrise or a sunset.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Yeah, lock it in, Let's go on holiday.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
Love it, Holiday to the North Pole. I love it.
Go look at a giant vault of seeds and bears
and bears with a gun apparently. And that's it for
this episode of weird Tech.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
If you have any weird tech that you would like
us to cover, or if some of your tech.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
Is being weird we want to hear about it.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
You can hit us up on all social media platforms
at weird Tech Media. We're a Weird Tech Media production
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was edited by the podcast Butler. Please remember to subscribe
on your favorite podcast platforms so you don't miss the
next episode. And until next time, stay weird
Hey, Ray, Hey Chagan, would you like to hear something
weird about a doomsday vault?
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Wow, yes, my favorite. Actually, no, this will be your favorite.
I can guarantee it. It's specifically a doomsday vault full
of seeds.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Oh, I think I know about this one.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
You know, I think I know about this one from
reading World Dark Shore.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
But yes, that's exactly. I feel like we've had this conversation.
I think you told me about that book. Then I
think that we discussed this, but it was a while ago.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Yes, it was a while ago.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
Oh, and I've always wanted to do some research into
the real doomsday seed vault. But it looks like you've
done it. Thank you, taking You're so welcome.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Ray. This is called this Valbard Global Seed Vault.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
I'm sorry I'm going to be butcher that name, but
its basis Svalbard is island that's very close to the
North Pole. And the reason I say it specifically like that.
And I don't know if we have any listeners that
are also chronically online. There is this amazing, amazing TikToker
called Cecilia, and her whole thing is my name is Cecilia.
(01:19):
I live in a salbad an island close to the
North Pole. Like that's her whole intro, and she talks
about life on this island because there's a lot of
interesting things about Svalbard, which we will get to, but
one of the big things is that it's the home
of this doomsday vault that is full of seeds.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
In a bunker cove deep into a frozen mountain to.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Basically keep us alive if things went bad.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
I love this concept, and I also love the idea
of who gets to decide what seeds go in this vault,
because there's no way it could hold every seed for
every plant that we have on this planet.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Probably not, but it does have a red hot go
at it because in the bunker currently, I believe there
are about one point three million samples of seeds from
almost every country on Earth, So I do believe that's
part of it is that countries can send seeds and
things like that, so you're going to have things like
your wheat, rice, barley, beans, corned potato, things that will
(02:21):
keep humans fed. Yes, it's basically kind of like a
global library, but instead of books, it's for seeds.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
I love this as well, because there are now local
seed libraries that operate like book library.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yes, and you can go along.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
And you can like swap your seeds and you save
them from your garden. And like, I think that that's
such a lovely concept. So to have a global version
of this, yeah, it's pretty extraordinary, and I.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Think it's also very necessary, not even just to protect
humanity if we needed to replant, but I mean, you
would have seen this, there's no way that you haven't.
Just the amount of discourse has been lately around the
gardening communities and online and things like that about all
of these heirloom varietils of even things like apples and
(03:09):
tomatoes and things like that, that it is lost or.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
People just don't know about it.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
That's why there's all these sort of things about how, hey,
this apple like used to literally tastes like candy or
whatever it happens to be, because that's what used to exist.
But because we've become so globalized rather than localized without eating,
all of those local varietals just get lost unless people
keep them going.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
And there are a lot of passionate people that are
committed to saving those heirloom seeds.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
I know there's specific varieties.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
The Jonathan apples, for instance, grow really well in the
upper Blue Mountains, and quite a lot of people will
have a Jonathan apple tree in their front yard or
backyard because it was planted one hundred years ago, because
the local community then was really passionate about having this
apple as their local apple. But it's not a variety
that grows well at scale commercially.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
So you're not going to see it, is right.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
It's not a variety that's going to be producing the
most fruit or be the most resilient of maybe not
being pollinated as much as it could have been, as
we're seeing a lack of bees. So there is a
tendency to favor those varieties that can produce more bang feebuck,
which makes perfect sense for farmers. You know, if you're
growing apples, you want to be able to sell as
(04:22):
many apples as possible. If you've got poorer performing varieties,
it's not really going to be a priority for you,
especially when they take the same amount of resources to
get that apple to market, but you're not getting.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
As much for it.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
So yeah, to have communities who are committed to those
heirloom seeds.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
I'm growing heirloom tomatoes. Yes, my god.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
The most fun thing. I did that when I you
still lived at home a million years ago, and I
don't think I knew what a tomato was meant to
taste like until I grew things like black tomatoes and
green and yellow and get it actually do like fried
green tomatoes and things like that.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
The big, chunky, ugly ones, the ones that don't look
like perfect children's book drawings of fruit and vegetables. They're
the ones that you see less of now, but they're
the ones that taste the best. Right. It's like, how
if you're not the hot popular girl at school, you
have to develop a personality.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Yeah, that's what.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
These fruits have done. They've developed better flavor. They're like, hey, look,
I know I'm not much to look at, but you
gotta taste me.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Yeah. I would also argue that you see that.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
I mean, I see this in your Instagram stories, but
like all the time that when you have those this
little a plate that has like a few little bits
of like different types of tomatoes and there different sheets
and maybe they're like a little bit munted or whatever,
they look beautiful together.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
I love it so much.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
It makes me feel like the most wholesome person on
the planet, just having these tomatoes. I might have some
that have ripened on the vine, where I might have
some that have just changed color, and I want to
protect them from whatever bugs are around, or if there's
a big blood of rain coming, I'm scared that they
might split open if they get too much water, so
I bring them inside to ripen on the windows sill.
I just look at it and go, this is so wholesome.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
This is living.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
This is living.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
That's like, you know, some people have goals to have
like super yots and be flying around the world in
private jets and be rich and famous.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
I just want various varieties.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Of tomatoes I've grown in my garden to be ripening
on my windows sill.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
I've got that taken.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Because you've had time to do it. That's real richness,
I think it is.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
It is. Thank you. I am rich. You're rich in.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Varietals of tomatoes. We're we talking about, Oh, yes, seed vaults.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Seed seed a seed vault on a remote island near
the north Yes.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Okay, So how does it work?
Speaker 1 (06:42):
So yeah, countries and research centers around the world will
send copies of the most important seeds to your point. Like,
who decides it's important, I would say, to be able
to plant to save humanity. But basically these seeds are
sealed in special moisture proof packets and then they're stored
in giant free is a minus eighteen degrees celsius. And
so the idea is that if something wipes out crops
(07:05):
in the real world, disease, war, natural disaster, climate change,
all of that sort of thing. I think I even
saw that even if there was a really badly managed
national seed bank, because those do exist as well, that
there is a backup in the Arctic, so like a
control z.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
So you know, if there's a country that happens to
have quite a poor leader isn't very good at understanding
how the world works, how the planet works, and they
mess things up, there is a global contingency for that.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Exactly right, exactly, Thanks science, Thank you science.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
I don't know what it could be possibly talking about
in the modern context of maybe needing that.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Nothing at all. I've said nothing.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
I've said nothing, and it's talking in generalizations. Absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
So the volt's not that old.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
So it was officially open in two thousand and eight,
but the idea behind it is much older because scientists,
unsurprisingly You've been worried for decades about what we were
just talking about crop diversity loss. So over time, you know,
we've stopped growing all of these varietals and we only
rely that's the danger of relying on those very small
number of commercial crops that, yes, at scale, it makes sense,
(08:15):
you know, for profit and farmers, but when something's really efficient,
it's also really risky. So that's kind of part of
the problem. So if you know, a disease hits one
major strain of wheat or rice, what do you do exactly?
Speaker 3 (08:26):
You're in a global food crisis.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
That's why I always plant different varieties of everything that
I've got in my garden, and I've got them all
mixed together, and if they perform really well, then I
save one of the best fruits and I save the seeds.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Absolutely yeah, plant them the next year.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
I'm like, that performs well in my area, but it's
still never the only variety that I grow. It's not
going to happen, so I will end up with all
like hybrids as well, because one one will get pollinated
from the pollen from another plant.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
You're looking at this weird egg eggplant thing going. I'm
not sure this is a real fruit. You what are
you gonna taste like? It's not poison. Let's go for it.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
So the whole idea was to create this ultrasecure neutral,
long term backup for the planet where seeds can survive
even if those local seed banks were destroyed. And it
was funded by the Norwegian government and built in partnership
with an international organization called the Crop Trust, which is
very cool. But the reason that they chose Smarbards specifically
(09:27):
was for some pretty fun reasons, quite nerdy, but I think,
like you you'll understand this. So number one, it's a
natural freezer, you know, between Norway and the North Pole, so.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
Under ice like, you don't need electricity to run this thing, right.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
That's exactly my next point that if power failed completely,
they will naturally stay cold for decades. They're fine. It's
a the mountain is a big fridge, essentially.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
I love that, which is good.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Other things is also it's very geologically stable as well,
so they don't really get major earthquakes. There's no volcanoes,
there no tectonic drama.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Essentially good.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
It's a boring, solid Arctic island where there's not a
lot of people around.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Yeah, which would make it incredibly boring for the scientists
who have to go there and manage that vault as well.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Yeah, unless you really love the area, which some people do,
like people that choose to live on f Fabar, like
they really love that area because it's so isolated.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Ultimate introvert job. No one talk to me.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
I'm managing my seeds, giantizing seeds, my giant seed vault.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
I just saw like your eyes like that, like I
do I want this?
Speaker 4 (10:38):
My eyes just lit up at the idea of like
alphabetizing and categorizing a seed vault in a freezer in
a mountain by myself.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
There's yeah, I think get stick on podcasts on.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
I get through so many audiobooks taken.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
I know you would.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Another reason is geopolitical, So Norway is because that technically
Father Blood comes under the Norwegian government.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Very calm and neutral as far as.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Countries go, very chill, literally in so many ways, they're chill,
very unlikely to be invaded or bombed or collapsed into chaos.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Unless someone wants those seeds. I'm starting to get worried.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Everyone wants those seeds. They're going after the seeds.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Also, it's really dry, so really well above sea level.
You know, there's obviously you could have some melting ice
scenarios with climate change, but it's it's designed to survive
rising oceans and extreme weather.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
In those I am imagining a future scenario where it's
like cool.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
So now the seed vault's melting.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Shit, we don't like that.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
That's bleak.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Yeah, let's not talk about that. I don't like that.
Let's keep it.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
No dark thoughts, no dark thoughts.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
No, just nice thoughts.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
And to your point about researchers, the other reason why
this was a good place is that it already had
a small research community and an airport.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Do you able to get into so they had infrastructure.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Oh yeah, of course.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Airport's important because the idea of using those big ice
breaker ships to get to places is horrific. So if
I ever want to visit this place, I'm going by plane.
I'm not getting in one of those boats. No one
can make me get on those boats.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
You don't have to. Rate's okay. I won't make you,
thank you, I won't make you. We can just go
visit the seed bubble normally in a plane. That's really fine.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Can you visit it? Do they allow tourists?
Speaker 1 (12:21):
I don't think you can go into it. You can
go up to it, because I've seen Cecilia do it.
Like you're not getting you're definitely getting in. And that's
my next point, because you're about all right, So this
is what you would need to do. I'll overcome if
you wanted to storm the seed lot ray.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Yeah, what kind of scientists do I want to be.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Exactly exactly A hot one that has a laser that
can break into things apparently.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
So there's massive.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Steel doors, it's air locked, they have motion sensors, reinforce tunnels,
climate controlled chambers, and like I said, if it's designed
to withstand earthquakes.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
And war and bombs and things like that, it's pretty
a Q. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
And to your question before about how much can we
get in there, it can fit up to four point
five million seed varieties, so it's not even like anywhere
near it capacity. No, So go and try and drop
some of your varietals off ray, like I've got these
smato seeds.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
I wonder how that compares with how many species we
have on Earth, because obviously food is going to be
the priority here. But I even think about in my
own garden, I've got non edible plants that grow because
they are companion plants of God do grow so they
attract certain pollinators or they emit gases that deal with pests.
(13:40):
So the idea of one plant being more important than
the other, it doesn't make sense when you're looking at
an ecosystem hollictoity.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Which I hope the scientists are probably taking that into account,
one would hope.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Look, I'm sure they know more about it than I do.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Realize, did you know that?
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Like, did you know.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
About companion planting? Have you heard of? And they're looking
at me.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Going, who are you?
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Please leave?
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Please please please leave? Go talk to the TikToker.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Do you want to hear something fun that happened with
the seed vault in twenty fifteen?
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Sure our country has already used it?
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Oh oh oh oh no.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
No no, no, Like, okay, I'm like, which countries ecosystem
is collapsing to?
Speaker 3 (14:28):
What are you going to surprise you?
Speaker 1 (14:30):
But in twenty fifteen, scientists from Syria withdrew some seeds
from the vault because their local seed banks got destroyed
in civil wars.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Yes, of course.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
They then go to Svahbard, recover lost crop varieties and
restart the research and etcetera, all of that.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Yeah, Oh that's incredible.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
So we'd be able to it would be able to
assist with the recovery of countries that have been in
war and already has Oh that's yeah. I just had
this gut moment of being able to regrow olive trees
in Gaza.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Yeah, that would be so important.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Oh gosh, how good is it this exists. You're making
me feel feelings about seeds like.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
I know, I know, I'm not sorry about it.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
No, thank you for bringing this into my life. You
are so welcome.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
I have a couple of extra quick things if you
want to learn about So this is not about the
seed Vault, but there's some really fun, weird facts about
Svalbard if you want to hear them. So, because it
is this very small island, quite small population, people build
cabins and things like that.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
You can get jobs there. There's towns or a main town,
but you know, not a lot of people there. So
there are some interesting rules around living there. So for example,
like you can just live there. You don't need to
have a visa. You can just go there and live
there as long as you have the means to support yourself.
So you could go and move there if you wanted
to as an Australian, that's no problem.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
I'm getting used to the colder.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
I reckon I could go be there for a little
a little while.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
I would miss people, But how good would that be?
Speaker 1 (16:08):
I mean, like, for example, to go back to Cilia,
Like she's a photographer and obviously now has this content
creating career and she does that with no problem from
this remote island.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Which is cool. So like the infrastructure is there to
be able to work online and what have you.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
So birth is not exactly illegal there, but it's very
much discouraged to give.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Birth there because there's no maternity ward.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
That is not a sentence. I thought it would come
out of your mouth. Yeah, it's not illegal there, but
it is discouraged. Yeah okay, yeah, all right, Oh well yeah,
not having the facilities to be able to care for
certain type of health conditions makes perfect sense.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
You get that in remote areas in Australia.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
So yeah, exactly, you get women that are about to
give birth moved from say East anam Land to Darwin
because there isn't the hospital services there to be able
to account for it.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
So yeah, that makes perfect sense.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yeah, and the same thing here, you'll get sent to
Norway before you give it. Making it illegal makes sense
because also sometimes you're going to leave it early.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
They're not going to then criminalize something someone for that.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
They're not going to find you or put you in prison.
They're just going to be like, hey, could you maybe
not do this because it's not safe?
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Yeah, I mean what sort of country, what sort of
modern country would you know, fine, or you know, put
someone in jail for things that you.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
Can't help around childbirth? Who would do that?
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Tigan taken.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
That's just not what a modern country would do.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
No, that's something from The Handmaids.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Sure, that's not real. Yeah, why would you do that?
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Definitely not real. I read nineteen eighty four the other
day that.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
I had that go good. I've read that sence as
a teenager.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Yeah, you should give it another read.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
I'm already so depressed. Right, it's a.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Very short book. That's why they gave it to us
in high school? How did we get onto this from seeds?
Seeds are delightful, it's great.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Sorry, we're talking about smile Bud.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
Thank you, thank you for telling me about the seed bank.
It's made my life better.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah, okay, okay, all right. Another weird fact of what
is illegal one's farbard is that you're not supposed to
die there. Oh so because you can't be buried there. Yeah,
and for a reason. And again when you hear it,
you're like, I didn't know that sentence was going to exist.
But when you think about it, it makes sense, which
is the ground is permanently frozen, so bodies won't decompose. Yeah,
(18:16):
it's like Everest, Yeah, exactly, slightly less horrifying than Everest.
So there are still apparently their old grays from the
early nineteen hundreds that contain perfectly preserved remains.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Of course they'd be perfectly preserved.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
But it also means preserved viruses potentially. Oh this makes
a lot of sense. It's like, you know what, we're
not putting more bodies in the ground.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Yeah, what did they die for? Probably tuberculosis? Everyone dies
from tuberculosis back in the.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Day, right, Yeah, yep.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
Yeah, So if the ice melts, these tb infested bodies
are going to float to the surface and affect all
the people working at the seed.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Bank exactly, and our TikToker. Yeah, and Cecilia exactly. So
similar to birth that if you're terminally ill, you're gonna
get flown to Norway essentially.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Yeah, makes sense.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
No one as to die, but if you do die there,
it's not ideal.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Yeah, exactly a couple of other quick things.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
If you're going to leave the main town, you need
a gun, like you're required to carry gun exactly.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Yeah, yeah, oh there we go.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Makes me sad, but I get it because protection because.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
It's in the Arctic, which means bears, instead of the Antarctic,
which means no bears, no bes.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
And it's a coincidence. Did you know that it's all.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
Tell me about that polar bears in the Arctic. Of policy,
it's not named after the actual bears. It's named after
Ursa Major, the constellation and whether.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Or not you can see it.
Speaker 4 (19:40):
So in the Arctic you can see Ursa Major, which
is known in some cultures as the bear. In the
Antarctic you can't, So bears, no bears, but it also
just happens that the animal is.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
There and it's the constellation of the bear.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
It's one of those things that doesn't seem like it
would make sense. But it's an incredible coincidence.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
I love. That's so good.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Another thing that's animal related that cats are banned, so
you can't have cats to protect the local bird species,
which makes a lot of.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Sense, makes perfect sense, yep.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
And another one that will not surprise you because again
you know it's the North Pole essentially, is that you
get four full months of darkness, you get polar nite.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Oh yeah, I would die of depression. That would I
would be like, fly me to where the hospital is pleased.
I'm ready to go.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Yeah, all I was going to bring a cat in.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
No, but then you've also got like the months and
months and months of just eternal sun as well.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Yeah, where you wouldn't be able to sleep yet.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
No, Yeah, my my desire to go to this place
is declining.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
We could go when it's a bit like more not
polar nighty for.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
You, if you like, Yeah, is there a middle time
of the year.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Kind of yeah, ideal, Like, yeah, there's sort of times
where I know that at the moment, at least a
few weeks ago, because again, Cecilia, that you're starting to
instead of just the polar night some more blue was
starting to come in as things were getting a little
bit more towards the warmer months and things like that.
So I think if you pick that sweet spot, you're
still probably going to get more of one than the
(21:07):
other with the night versus day, but you'll get a
loose a little bit more of.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Like a sunrise or a sunset.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Yeah, lock it in, Let's go on holiday.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
Love it, Holiday to the North Pole. I love it.
Go look at a giant vault of seeds and bears
and bears with a gun apparently. And that's it for
this episode of weird Tech.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
If you have any weird tech that you would like
us to cover, or if some of your tech.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
Is being weird we want to hear about it.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
You can hit us up on all social media platforms
at weird Tech Media. We're a Weird Tech Media production
and a proud member of the iHeartRadio Network. This episode
was edited by the podcast Butler. Please remember to subscribe
on your favorite podcast platforms so you don't miss the
next episode. And until next time, stay weird
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