Vanishing Nature
The rate at which species of living beings are currently going extinct on Earth is comparable to the times of the greatest catastrophes in the planet's history. As Lenta.ru notes, the cause of the current catastrophe is human activity. The galloping increase in the human population and the development of industry, which far outpaces our population growth, are causing the development of Homo sapiens to sweep away ecosystems across the planet.
According to the UN, in the coming decades a quarter of mammal species will disappear from the face of the Earth, and other biological kingdoms will suffer comparable losses. Environmental organizations, founders of nature reserves and national parks can do nothing to counter the relentless march of technological progress.
Half the world is ready to save the adorable panda, but who, besides narrow specialists, will mourn a disappearing worm or a rare mold? Having lost hope of preserving all the diversity of life in its natural habitat, scientists are launching projects to "archive" the biosphere, planning to pass on to future generations at least samples of once-thriving species. Biologists hope for a small thing - that someday, from cooled seeds and frozen eggs, already extinct species will be able to be revived after the global cataclysms awaiting us.
Last Stronghold
Previously, on these islands, the earth was mainly dug into by Soviet coal miners, who extracted anthracite in the polar snowy desert with questionable economic benefit. Now the movement is in the opposite direction: the Global Crop Diversity Trust intends to deposit at least one and a half million seed samples in the depths of Svalbard, and in the future this number will increase several times. Also to be stored are DNA samples of endangered species and creatures that are threatened with extinction in the near future - in deep freeze, the hereditary material may be preserved forever. In permafrost, at least, perfectly preserved genetic material up to a hundred thousand years old has been found.
Norwegians call Svalbard Spitsbergen, so the repository will officially be called the Svalbard International Seed Vault. In March, active construction work will begin on the site, which should be completed in 2008. The Norwegian government is allocating $5 million for the construction. The operation of the complex will require $125,000 per year - a mere pittance compared to the "toys" of physicists or aerospace agencies. Preserving the genome of one species for posterity will cost only $500. The facility itself will belong to the Norwegian government, but the biological material, as project leaders say, is "a gift to humanity."
The repository is planned to be fully automated; people will only visit it for regular checks. This is not said aloud, but it is obvious that the facility is designed for a time when people will, at the very least, have no time to care for collections of some agricultural crops. Nevertheless, the project's authors assume that someone will remain on Earth who will need this carefully sealed treasure and will be ready to clone the preserved DNA to recreate extinct species.
The isolation of the northern archipelago simplifies its protection from terrorists and other malefactors. Its near-polar location gives hope that even in the event of large-scale warming, the repository will remain in the permafrost zone, which will preserve the collection. The main international vault will be buried at a depth of 120 meters. The meter-thick concrete walls of the bunker are designed to withstand nuclear war, an asteroid impact, and catastrophic climate change.
A site with minimal seismic hazard was chosen for the ark. According to calculations, in the event of melting of the polar ice caps and the disappearance of the Greenland ice sheet, the repository will remain 80 meters above sea level. The tunnel leading to the repository itself will be equipped with several massive hermetic seals, ensuring complete isolation of the "payload" from the aggressive external environment.
The repository's collection will be regularly updated, which is why, according to experts, special interest is shown in companies that sell seed material of corn, wheat and many other crops.. Some crops, biologists explain, can retain their germination only for 20-30 years, others for tens or even hundreds of years. A special system will maintain a constant temperature inside the repository between -10 and -20 degrees Celsius.
Regional DNA banks will continue active scientific work on collecting and organizing materials. But anything can happen to them too. For example, the Philippines agricultural crop bank was destroyed by a typhoon in October last year. Insurance against such misfortunes is precisely what the archive sealed in rock should provide. "I think Noah would be very proud of this project," says Anne McLaren, chair of the steering committee of the "Frozen Ark."
Salvation in the Heavens
There are, however, scientists on Earth who distrust our civilization so much that they consider the Moon to be the nearest "safe haven" for organizing such a repository.
Several years ago, the head of the Lunar Projects Department of the European Space Agency, Bernard Foing, proposed establishing a base on the surface of our satellite where preserved DNA samples of all existing species would be stored.
If life on Earth is virtually destroyed as a result of nuclear war or a space incident (if, for example, an asteroid hits it), then the only chance to restore life could be the lunar DNA bank. According to the scientist, the library must also preserve human DNA samples.
So far this project is in its initial stage; serious development will begin after the Europeans land an automatic station on the Moon.
Forward to the origins
In the 5th century BC, the Greek philosopher Anaxagoras suggested that life originated from a seed that exists "always and everywhere". This concept, now called the "theory of panspermia", does not contradict the fundamental laws of evolution.
In its modern form, the theory of panspermia was shaped in the second half of the 19th century by Hermann Eberhard Richter, Svante Arrhenius, and Hermann von Helmholtz. According to this hypothesis, life on Earth originated from spores of plants or microorganisms that were somehow transported from other planets. Today it is obvious that no seeds or spores can independently survive a space journey.
One of the fathers of modern biology, the discoverer of the double helix of DNA, Nobel laureate Francis Crick in 1973 (co-authored with Leslie Orgel) proposed the idea of "directed panspermia", according to which living organisms were deliberately sent to Earth by another civilization.
If we are not alone in the universe, and the development of civilizations proceeds at least somewhat similarly, then this concept leaves only one question: why would any civilization suddenly need to "infect" other worlds with its life forms? Is it not because existence on their own planet became impossible?