Syria’s Civil War Forced This Arctic Doomsday Seed Bank to Open Early

The seed bank, built in 2008 on a remote island halfway between Norway and the North Pole, holds 860,000 seed samples deposited by countries all over the world. It’s meant to serve as “the final back up” for the world’s staple crops — rice from Asia, African maize, European barley — just in case they accidentally get obliterated through disease or nuclear war.