Noah's ark for crop seeds stashed away in Arctic ice

Norway yesterday launched a Noah's ark of the plant kingdom to protect crop seeds, among mankind's most valuable resources, from cataclysm inside an Arctic mountainside.

Blasted out of icy rock 1,000 km from the North Pole, the air-locked vaults would stay frozen for 200 years even in the worst-case scenario of global warming and if mechanical refrigeration were to fail, officials said.