Preparing seeds for doomsday scenario

HELSINKI, FINLAND - Nearly 10 years after a "doomsday" seed vault opened on an Arctic island, some 50,000 new samples from collections around the globe have been deposited in the world's largest repository, built to safeguard against wars or natural disasters wiping out food crops.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a gene bank built underground on the isolated island in a permafrost zone some 1,000 kilometers from the North Pole, was opened in 2008 as a master backup to the world's other seed banks, in case their deposits are lost.

The latest specimens sent to the bank, located on the Svalbard archipelago between mainland Norway and the North Pole, include more than 15,000 reconstituted samples from an international research center that focuses on improving agriculture in dry zones.