This glittering concrete monolith is a lot like that still-sealed emergency survival kit languishing in your basement since 1999: Reassuring to have around, but a bummer when you actually have to use it. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault—better known by its cute nickname, the "Doomsday Vault"—was established on this far-northern Norwegian isle in 2008 to archive frozen genetic copies of seeds already housed in seed banks around the world: a backup of all the backups. Kept at minus 0.4 degrees F within the seed vault, precious botanicals from food to fibers to flowers are safe from disasters, even of the apocalyptic variety. Lucky us: It"ll take a healthy diet of veggies to fight off the zombies.
Even nature needs a backup plan…
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Grab onto the handlebars, kid
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The first ascent
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Let s ride! It s Roller Coaster Day
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World Migratory Bird Day
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Protecting endangered giants
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The tortoise and the finch
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Ravens
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The wild heart of Tasmania
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Mooncake time
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On this shore, history was made
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Celebrating Madagascar on its Independence Day
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Anybody out there?
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Seattle Central Library, Seattle, Washington
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Cenote near Puerto Aventuras, Mexico
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It’s Siblings Day!
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Bridges to the past
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Sunburst at Angkor
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Summer winds down in the Hamptons