This newsletter comes out every other Thursday and hopefully provides you with thought-provoking content about the mundane, wacky, and weird. If you enjoy the newsletter, please share it with a friend and let me know your thoughts.
Deep inside a vault in the Arctic Circle lies the answer for sustainable agriculture for hundred of centuries. No, it's not robotic farmers or vertical gardening. It is "seed banks", the topic of this Beach Bi-Weekly. A seed bank is a place where seeds are stored to preserve genetic diversity for the future. Seed banks are an important tool in ensuring the future diversity of plants. Here are scientists showing off a few samples in a seed bank.
You don't have to be a scientist to know that there is a mass extinction of plant biodiversity happening around the world. You simply have to talk to someone who has been on the planet for more than a few decades.
Let's take the all-American apple as an example. How many apples can you name? In the 1800s United States farmers and gardeners were growing 7,100 varietials of apples. Imagine that, 7,100 apples with a distinct set of genes and names. Today, 6,800 of those are extinct, no longer to be seen again. That's not that long ago. Your grandma's grandma was probably walking the earth in the 1800s. When you stroll the aisles of the supermarket today, you are lucky to see more than a handful of varieties. Imagine seeing these 5 apples and then thousands more behind them?
Why is the diversity of seeds and plants important?
A diversity of agricultural seeds protects us against future pests and diseases. For example, a variety of strands of apples provides us with options. Options are of course, what we need in an era of climate change.
How do seed banks work?
To ensure the seeds will be useful for future generations, you dry the seeds and then freeze them. Simple process.
There are seed banks all over the world. However, seed banks in countries that are in unrest, can be torn down and lost forever. Seed banks in Lebanon, Syria, and many other places in the past century have been ravaged by being near war-torn areas. However, there is one seed bank in the arctic circle that looks like something out of a James Bond film and it is built to last. Svalbard is located in the arctic circle above Norway and is built into a mountain.
Svalbard first broke ground in 2008. It is on Norweigan land and the Norweigan government paid for the initial construction. However, any country can make a deposit for free. The Svalbard seed bank is one of the few things in today's world that all countries can agree is important. Even North Korea has submitted seeds to Svalbard.
There are now over a million seeds at Svalbard, representing over a third of the known agricultural seeds in the world!
The agriculturalist and scientist Cary Fowler is the brainchild of Svalbard. He has been involved in seed banks for over 40 years and knows the other major players in the seed bank sector. In. 2008 as the Arab Spring was starting, Cary called his contact at the Aleppo seed bank. Cary heard Syria was starting to have violent protests. As a measure of precaution, Aleppo sent a portion of their samples to Svalbard. Two weeks after sending their seeds to Svalbard, "all hell broke loose" and the Syrian seed bank could no longer staff people in the Aleppo seed bank. They had gotten the seeds out just in time. Here is an image of the uprising near Aleppo.
As climate change increasingly wreaks havoc on our planet in the coming centuries, it will be important for us to feed ourselves. That's where the beauty of diversity of seeds can help. For example, one variety of rice grows best buried in 15 feet of water, while another does best in semi-arid locations. As our environment changes, we will plant the seeds that make the most sense in that location. Those might not be the seeds that have always grown there. Diversity insures us against everything we know is coming and everything we don't know is coming. Today, I'm thankful there are people like Cary Fowler who are working to protect our future fuel of humanity.
Zoom boom - lockdown face
Plastic surgeons have seen a surge in business due to people spending all day looking at themselves on Zoom. Constantly glancing at yourself on Zoom is exhausting.
Even though you probably aren't considering plastic surgery, you should still consider using Zoom's "hide self-view". You won't be able to see yourself and it doesn't turn off your camera. It's the closest to mirroring humans talking to each other. You see everyone else, but not yourself.
Countries that appeared most frequently in NYT headlines each month since 1900
Bonus: The author mentioned the file was created in Figma 🙌
Pic of the week
Jenny is an Occupational Therapist in the San Francisco school district so she has the summer off. I am still working from home for another couple of months.
This has been a golden period for us to get a lot of quality time together and with Chloe. Chloe is now 4 months old and got her final round of puppy shots, which means she can now go to the dog park! If you have a dog in the Bay Area, we would love to meet up and arrange a dog playdate 🐕