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Speaker 1: The journey to this place, it begins in silence. Imagine

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stepping out of the plane onto a runway that's literally

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built on a constantly shifting layer of parmafrost. The air

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hits you. It's thin, biting, and just impossibly clear. You

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are on Spitzbergen, part of the Norwegian Small Barred Archipelago,

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barely a thousand kilometers from the North Pole.

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Speaker 2: It's a place of really stark, beautiful extremes. But what

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makes this landscape truly unique isn't just the geography. It's

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the human endeavor carved deep inside one of these Arctic mountains.

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It's a global insurance policy wrapped in concrete and ice.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to thrilling threads, where we pull on the threads

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of the world's most fascinating stories. For years, this location

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has been known by a single dramatic name, the Doomsday Vault.

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Yeah means it evokes these images of global collapse, the

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ultimate final chapter for humanity.

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Speaker 2: But the reality is I think far more interesting and frankly,

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far more relevant to our lives. Right now, today, we

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are going to explore what that dramatic nickname hides and

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what exactly we humans are trying to save up here

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in the ultimate secure deposit box.

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Speaker 1: Because while the seeds, the biological building blocks of our

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food supply, are the headline, just down the hall, secured

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in the same geological stability is an entire history of

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human knowledge, culture, and code.

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Speaker 2: That's the real story.

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Speaker 1: So this episode asks what is the true purpose of

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the s Falbarred Global Seed Vault and what else are

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they storing in the Arctic besides seeds.

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Speaker 2: It's a mission that spans biology, geopolitics, philosophy, and some

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seriously cutting edge data technology. We've synthesized sources covering all

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of these areas, from the logistics of archiving from millennia

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to the critical counter narratives about what conservation even is.

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Speaker 1: So our goal is to move past the whole apocalyp.

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Speaker 2: Smith exactly and to understand the complex, dynamic purpose of

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these incredible Arctic archives.

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Speaker 1: Let's begin with the physical and political foundation. Because the

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location of the Sfalbard Global Seed Vault, the SGSV that's

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the first layer security, were on Spitzbergen Island. Why here

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of all places? I mean it feels like the end

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of the world.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's a multi layered answer, and it starts with

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the natural environment. The facility is carved what one hundred

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and thirty meters deep into the side of a mountain,

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and it's surrounded by permanent permafrost. That permafrost acts as

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a natural freezer. It maintains these stable cold temperatures even

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if the engineered cooling system were.

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Speaker 1: To fail, and that engineer temperature is kept at minus

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eighteen degrees celsius mise eighteen.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the critical temperature you need for long term

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seed preservation. But you know, the political climate there is

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just as important as the meteorological one. Oh so, geopolitical

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stability is paramount for a long term global project like this.

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Sfalbard is regulated by the Swalbard Treaty, which is this

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remarkable international agreement signed way back in nineteen twenty after

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World War One. Okay, forty two nations are signatories, and

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it effectively demilitarizes the islands. This legal framework makes Falbard

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one of the most secure, able and neutral locations on

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Earth for housing such a vital international resource.

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Speaker 1: So that combination of natural stability the frozen ground, and

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political stability a demilitarized zone, that's what leads people to

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call it the doomsday vault. It feels like the last lifeboat.

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Speaker 2: It does. It has that vibe. But the people who

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actually built it, they strongly reject that simplistic narrative.

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Speaker 1: Oh they do, they do, and.

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Speaker 2: It's a crucial correction to make the co creator, a

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British Canadian plan scientist named Jeffrey Houghton, was super explicit

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and clarifying that the vault was never designed to provide

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seeds after Armageddon after Armageddon, right, that popular nickname. It

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completely misses the true operational purpose.

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Speaker 1: So if it's not for surviving a nuclear winter or

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some kind of asteroid impact, what is the sgsv's actual mission,

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what's its role in the global system of conservation?

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Speaker 2: Its true purpose is much more subtle, but I would

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argue far more practical and immediate. The SGSV is a

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backup repository for existing working GENA banks all around the world,

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a backup. Think of it as a supremely secure, deeply

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coal safety deposit box. It's insurance, but it's not against

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a singular, catastrophic Hollywood style apocalypse. It's insurance against the

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cumulative effect of countless, smaller, more common disasters.

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Speaker 1: Like what kind of practical threats are we talking about

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safeguarding against.

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Speaker 2: We're talking about bad management, administrative failure, budget cuts that

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lead to the refrigeration getting turned off, oh wow, equipment malfunctions, fires, floods, hurricanes,

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and sadly, human conflict. The world's primary active gena banks,

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you know, the ones in Brazil or India. They're critical

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research hubs, but they are subject to all these local,

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political and environmental risks. Smallbard serves as the ultimate safety duplicate,

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far far removed from those daily risks.

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Speaker 1: The scale of this insurance must be massive.

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Speaker 2: It is. It's designed to hold safety duplicates for up

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to four million seed samples. Right now it holds over

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one point two million sample point two million, yeah, which

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represents an astonishing preservation of genetic diversity for our food crops.

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The goal is to ensure that plant breeders in the

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centuries to come have access to the traits they need

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disease resistance, drought tolerance, heat tolerance to feed a changing world.

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Speaker 1: And what about the longevity of the contents. We know

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the structure is designed to last, but how long do

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the seeds themselves actually stay viable.

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Speaker 2: That's where that minus eighteen degrees celsius temperature is absolutely critical.

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Haughton's research showed that seeds of most cereal crops, so wheat, barley, maize, rice,

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they'll keep for at least one hundred years.

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Speaker 1: Under those conditions one hundred years minimum.

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Speaker 2: And often considerably more. They are in a deep state

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of cryosleep. It's a living library designed for centuries, not

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just decades.

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Speaker 1: Now. This is the point that truly elevates the Small

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Barred story beyond theory and into immediate vital importance. It's

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not just some reserve for a distant theoretical future. It's

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already been used, that is, in a real world rescue.

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Speaker 2: It The case study of the gene bank in Aleppo,

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Syria is maybe the most powerful proof of concept for

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the entire project. This is where the Vault moved from

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just being passive insurance to an active rescue operation.

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Speaker 1: Okay, walk us through what happened there.

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Speaker 2: So, the International Center for Agricultural Research and the Dry Areas,

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which is known as IKARTA, they maintained this vital gene

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bank just outside Aleppo, and they managed an invaluable collection

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of drought resistant crops from the Fertile Crescent, a crucial

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resource for Arit agriculture.

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Speaker 1: Worldwide, so super important stuff.

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Speaker 2: Incredibly important. But when the Syrian Civil War escalated, fighting

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engulfed the area and it became impossible for staff to

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safely access and maintain the facility, the active collection was

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effectively lost, lost to destruction and just chaos, exactly administrative breakdown.

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That's a catastrophic failure of a working collection, a huge

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loss of biodiversity.

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Speaker 1: So what was the recovery path? How do they fix that?

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Speaker 2: Well, because of Ikarta's foresight and their adherence to global protocols,

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much of their collection had already been deposited as safety

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duplicates in this fall Barred Global Seed Vault.

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Speaker 1: AH, so the backup was already in place.

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Speaker 2: It was so in twenty fifteen they made the first

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ever withdrawal from the vault.

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Speaker 1: They actually pulled seeds out of the doomsday vaults.

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Speaker 2: They did. They withdrew approximately thirty eight thousand samples and

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these weren't just random seas. These were carefully chosen strains

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they needed immediately for research and to reconstitute their collection.

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Speaker 1: And where did they go?

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Speaker 2: The material was shipped out and used to establish new,

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secure active collections at Ikarda's new headquarters in Morocco and Lebanon.

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Speaker 1: That is a phenomenal achievement. It means the war destroyed

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the original facility, but it didn't destroy.

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Speaker 2: The science precisely. Houghton noted that the saved material, material

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that had been collected decades earlier, it came full circle

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and was growing again in new gene banks. This just

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illustrates that the threat isn't always some massive external force.

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The threat is local conflict, the breakdown of infrastructure, and

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the administrative vulnerability that plague daily human existence. Stalbard is

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the escape valve for that reality.

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Speaker 1: Which brings us to a key distinction, the difference between

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passive backup and active scientific work. The SGSV is passive, right,

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It just holds things, but it relies on these active

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research centers.

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Speaker 2: It does. The whole global system is a network. We

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look at the US Department of Agriculture facility in Fort Collins, Colorado.

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That's a perfect example of an active gene bank. While

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Stalbard freezes and weights, Fort Collins is actively engaging with

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its collections.

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Speaker 1: What kind of active work are those scientists doing.

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Speaker 2: They are essentially mining the genetic diversity. They are continually

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growing out the seas, evaluating them and asking these fundamental

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pressing questions like what does this specific ancient variety of

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wheat have that might contribute something vital to a modern

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variety that's facing a new past or trying to adapt

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to increasingly severe heat waves. They're the ones testing the

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material against new threats, making sure we have solutions ready

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to breed into our future crops I understand.

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Speaker 1: They also tackle some of the hardest conservation problems, right

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the species that don't fit neatly into a freezer pack.

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Speaker 2: That's the recalcitrant species problem a great term. These are

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seeds like those from many tropical fruits, avocados or even

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apples and cocoa, whose seeds actually die if you dry

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and freeze them. Huh yeah, So you can't just stick

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them in this Ballbard system. This doesn't work.

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Speaker 1: So how do you Facilities like Fort Collins handle those?

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Speaker 2: They turn to some really cutting edge cryopreservation techniques. Instead

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of freezing the seed, they often can serve buds or

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tissues or even embryos. They use extremely rapid cooling methods,

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frequently involving liquid nitrogen to conserve these parts.

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Speaker 1: That sounds incredibly complex.

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Speaker 2: It is it requires constant monitoring and high levels of

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technical expertise to ensure the living material can later be

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regenerated into a whole plant. And this contrast sharply with

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Svalbard's relative simplicity. S Fallbard is just a very big,

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very secure, very cold warehouse, the active banks of the

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sophisticated laboratories.

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Speaker 1: And looking at the entire global operation, it's managed through

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this powerful structure of international cooperation.

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Speaker 2: It's a masterful piece of global governance. The whole system

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is ultimately guided by the UNFAO and the International Treaty

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on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.

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Speaker 1: So there's a real framework, a.

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Speaker 2: Very clear one. The management structure is a tripartite partnership.

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The Norwegian government owns the facility, the Crop Trust provides

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funding and assists in global resource mobilization, and the Nordic

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Genetic Resource Center or nord Gen handles the daily operations,

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the logistics and all the careful documentation.

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Speaker 1: It's almost astonishing that a project with such profound global

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significance runs on what seems like a pretty modest budget.

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I saw some figures that really drive this point home.

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Speaker 2: It is a phenomenal return on investment. The original construction

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cost for the vault was approximately twenty eight million dollars.

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Speaker 1: That's it for the whole thing.

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Speaker 2: That's it, And it's annual run costs are less than

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a million dollars a year. Wow. For that minimal outlay,

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you are literally backing up. And this is a quote

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essentially the entire genetic diversity of all of our crops.

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Speaker 1: Which is a powerful statement about interdependence, isn't it.

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Speaker 2: It is the ultimate expression of interdependence. Kennadozi's the secretary

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of the Seed Treaty, has often stressed that no country

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today is truly self sufficient in its food supply.

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Speaker 1: Right, everything comes from everywhere.

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Speaker 2: All major crops cultivated globally are botanical immigrants. They originated

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somewhere else. This conservation system is just a modernized technological

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framework for the seed sharing practices that farmers have used

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for ten thousand years. We are securing everyone's heritage for

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everyone's future.

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Speaker 1: That sets the stage beautifully for our next question. If

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we are securing the biological heritage of humanity, what about

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the intellectual and cultural heritage? What else are they storing

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besides seeds?

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Speaker 2: And the answer is that right next door in the

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exact same mountain is a completely separate venture. The Arctic

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World Archive or a AWAEWA. This is where humanity's digital heritage,

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the blueprints, the art, the music is being stored for

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the very long term.

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Speaker 1: So it's not the same vault. It's a parallel operation,

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but it's using the same unique geological security precisely.

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Speaker 2: The AWA opened in twenty seventeen. It was created through

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a partnership between Pickley, which is a Norwegian data storage

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company specializing in ultra long term archiving in SNSK, a

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local mining company. It's built out of a mine shaft

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from an abandoned coal mine.

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Speaker 1: So cool.

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Speaker 2: The SGSV safeguard's life itself. The AWA safeguards the record

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of that life.

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Speaker 1: What kind of records are taking up residents in the permafrost, Well, we're.

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Speaker 2: Talking about foundational, historical and governmental records first and foremost.

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The initial depositors were governments including Brazil, Mexico and Norway Okay.

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They placed copies of their constitutions and other significant foundational

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historical papers into the vault. This is about securing the

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fundamental documents that define national identity and political continuity.

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Speaker 1: That's a powerful, full symbolic gesture archiving the document that

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defines your state in a place that's designed to survive

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the state it is.

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Speaker 2: But the contents quickly move beyond just political documents into

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essential scientific and environmental data which reflects our immediate global crises.

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For example, the archive includes extensive information about the biodiversity

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of Australia. Oh interesting, yeah, including the detailed data from

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the ATLSS of Living Australia, and.

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Speaker 1: I understand it also holds crucial technological tools related to

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our changing climate.

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Speaker 2: That's right. Geoscience Australia deposited copies of their machine learning

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models related to climate chains in.

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Speaker 1: Bushfires, the models themselves, not just the.

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Speaker 2: Data the models, and this is an incredible example of foresight.

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They aren't just archiving the data about fires, they're archiving

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the complex proprietary models used to predict and manage those events.

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Recreating those cutting edge models would be hugely expensive in

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time consuming, so preserving the finished intellectual product is essential

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for future climate researchers.

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Speaker 1: That is definitely forward thinking. But perhaps the most famous

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and certainly the most massive deposit involves the very foundation

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of modern technology. The code vault from the GitHub archive program.

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Speaker 2: This is just a monumental effort. GitHub, which is the

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world's largest host of source code. It was acquired by

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Microsoft in twenty eighteen, initiated a program to archive all

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public open source code in the AWA, all of it.

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It's an attempt to ensure that the cumulative knowledge of

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the world software engineers endures.

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Speaker 1: All the public code. That must represent a truly staggering

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volume of data. How do we even begin to visualize

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that scale?

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Speaker 2: Okay, so the initial archive from February twenty twenty was

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twenty one terabytes. That's already huge. Yeah, But to give

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you a sense of what that means in human effort,

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one source noted that if someone were to type continuously

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at a speed of sixty words per minute, it would

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take them one hundred and eleven thousand, three hundred years

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just to type out the characters stored in that archive.

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Speaker 1: One hundred and eleven thousand years.

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Speaker 2: It is essentially the entire digital language of modern civilization.

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Speaker 1: That number. That's a fantastic mental anchor for the sheer volume.

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And what does the code archive actually contain? Is it

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just obscure development tools?

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Speaker 2: Far from it. That single first reel of film holds

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what you might call a Technological Civilization starter kit.

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Speaker 1: A starter kit.

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Speaker 2: I love that it includes the code for both the

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Linux and Android operating systems, along with over six thousand

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other major open source applications that underpin everything from web

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browsers to data processing tools.

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Speaker 1: It is literally backing up the fundamental operating systems that

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run the modern world. If civilization needed to reboot its

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digital infrastructure, they would start there exactly.

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Speaker 2: The code is stored as an incredibly high density matrix

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or a two D bar code, with each platter carrying

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one hundred and twenty gigabytes. It's designed to be readable

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for centuries, securing the language of technological creation.

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Speaker 1: And it's interesting the collective effort involved, even if people

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didn't know they were part of it.

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Speaker 2: Yes, the sheer breadth of the open source community means

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everyone who contributed, even if they were just fixing a

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tiny typo in some documentation, suddenly got this Vault badge

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on their profile.

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Speaker 1: Right. I remember seeing that.

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Speaker 2: And they realized their code was heading north. There was

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this wonderful online sentiment where one comment or joked that

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their shitty code was in there too.

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Speaker 1: I saw another great anecdote about someone who accidentally archived

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their weather map API key.

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Speaker 2: It just speaks to the wide net cast by the

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archive program, but it reinforces the central point. Open source

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software is the infrastructure. As one Person Online profoundly put it,

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if society ever collapses, the priority should be to get

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FFmpeg image magic and opens allo up again as fast

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as possible. Everything depends on that. Literally, the essential tools

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are now safe.

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Speaker 1: So we have the biological foundation for our food and

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the digital foundation for a technology. But there is a

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third pillar of human experience being preserved, which speaks directly

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to humanity's emotional and creative life. Music Vault or GMV.

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Speaker 2: The GMV is a separate, dedicated initiative focused on preserving

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music for future generations. Its mission is to safeguard the

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most important living musical expressions, archiving music that has profoundly

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shaped societies and inspired cultures across history.

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Speaker 1: What prompted this initiative was there a specific event that

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made people realize the urgency.

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Speaker 2: There was a frightening moment in recent history, the twenty

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nineteen fire at Universal Studios, Hollywood, which destroyed scores of

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irreplaceable master tapes and recordings by iconic artists.

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Speaker 1: A huge loss, a.

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Speaker 2: Devastating loss, and it highlighted the fragility of traditional music archives.

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The brainchild behind the gmv's Luke Jenkinson, an IT entrepreneur

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whose company LRA is partnering with Microsoft to make this

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a reality.

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Speaker 1: So we are moving away from film and code matrices

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and into a radically different storage medium for music. Tell

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us about the technology used in the Global Music fault.

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Speaker 2: The GMV is utilizing silica glass platters. This is a

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material that offers incredible resis millions far beyond traditional magnetic

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media or even archival film. Silica glass platters are essentially

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immune to many of the threats that destroy digital data.

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Speaker 1: In what way is silica glass more resilient?

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Speaker 2: Think about the biggest threats to data, water, extreme heat,

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physical abrasion, and most critically, electromagnetic pulses EMPs. Silica glasses

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resistant to all of these. The data, the master quality

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audio files are etched into the surface of the glass

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using highly focused laser optics. If a massive solar flare

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hit Earth, wiping out magnetic storage globally, this physical etching

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would remain completely untouched.

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Speaker 1: And how dense is the data storage on these plotters

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right now?

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Speaker 2: Each square platter can hold about one hundred and fifty

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gigabytes of master quality files. That's a huge volume for

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high resolution audio. But the developers are aggressively working to

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push that capacity higher, aiming for one or even two

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terabytes per square in the.

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Speaker 1: Near future, which would make it viable for archiving vast

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national music libraries exactly now, music is profoundly cultural. Curation

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is vital here. How is the GMV avoiding the inherent

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biases of institutional librarians who might only archive what they

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deem important in the current moment.

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Speaker 2: That was explicitly part of Jenkinson's vision to bypass those barriers.

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He argued that the music industry, with this new technology,

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has a chance to remove those barriers of figuring out

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what should we archive when essentially you can archive everything.

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The idea is a holistic approach to capture the global

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sonic landscape.

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Speaker 1: But you can't truly archive everything. So how do they

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ensure balance and representation across diverse cultures.

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Speaker 2: They collaborate closely with the International Music Council the IMC,

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and they use designated music rights champions from around the globe.

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These champions are responsible for ensuring that the collection doesn't

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just reflect commercially successful or dominant cultures. It's about preserving

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the musical expressions that define specific societies, particularly those facing

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cultural erasure, and the stories of those champions really embody

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that mission absolutely. I mean think of individuals like arn

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torn Pond, a Cambodian musician, human rights activist, and a

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survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime. Oh for doctor Ahmad sarmast,

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an Afghani music educator who risked his life to establish

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music schools in defiance of the Taliban. These curators bring

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a necessary depth and an understanding of cultural survival to

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the collection. They ensure that the archive holds not just

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popular tracks, but the cultural resilience that's encoded in music.

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Speaker 1: That is a staggering commitment from the genetic code that

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feeds us, to the operating code that runs our world,

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and now to the cultural code that defines our spirit.

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All frozen and waiting in the Arctic. The existence of

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both the Arctic World Archive and the Global Music Fault

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really underscores one of the great quiet crises of our

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digital age, the astonishing frigility of modern data storage. We

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create more data than ever before, yet our ability to

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keep it for more than a decade is shot uckingly core.

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Speaker 2: That's the core of the longevity crisis.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: The vast majority of the world's data we were talking about,

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roughly eighty percent, is stored on magnetic media like hard

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drives and tapes. These to degrade rapidly. Traditional tapes require

401
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migration every few years, and hard drives can become unreadable

402
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within decades, often much sooner due to format obsolescence or

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just physical decay.

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Speaker 1: And the volume is accelerating exponentially. The numbers related to

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data production are difficult to even conceptualize.

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Speaker 2: They're massive. We're entering the zetabyte era. To put a

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zetabyte in context, it's a billion terabytes billion terabytes. Sources

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project that the worldwide installed storage capacity is racing toward

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twenty six point three zetabytes by twenty thirty, and then

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a stunning leap to two hundred and fifty one point

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eight zetabytes by twenty forty. We're talking about the yattabyte

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era by the twenty fifties, a unit so large it's

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rarely used outside of theoretical physics, and.

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Speaker 1: Girtner is already warning us about a huge bottleneck in

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this correct.

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Speaker 2: Despite the massive production, Gartner is projecting a zetabyte scale

417
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supply gap in the second half of this decade. We

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are creating data faster than we can reliably store it,

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especially for long term archival needs. This constant requirement to

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migrate data every seven to ten years is complex, incredibly

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costly and energy intensive. It's a Sisifian task.

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Speaker 1: So the Arctic vaults are a direct practical response to

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this archival crisis, a huge investment in media that doesn't

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need to be constantly migrated. Let's start with the proven

425
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technology currently securing the AWA, the Peak ecosystem. It feels

426
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beautifully retro using film, but it's entirely digital.

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Speaker 2: It's a very high tech twist on traditional photography. Peak

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film is a thirty five millimeter with polyester film coded

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with the silver halled emulsion, just like the film that

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preserved images for over a century.

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Speaker 1: And the lifespan is huge.

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Speaker 2: The claim longevity is hundreds of years. Some sources are

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confident in a five hundred year lifespan, others are aiming

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for a thousand.

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Speaker 1: How exactly do you take binary data ones and zeros

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and physically encode it onto a photosensitive film.

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Speaker 2: It's a precise two stage process. First, the digital data

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files converted into its binary form. Then this dedicated machine,

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the pickle writer, uses Photon's intense, precisely controlled light to

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expose the photosensitive layer of the film, encoding the binary

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code as a series of microscopic pixels.

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Speaker 1: And the second stage is fixation, making it permanent.

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Speaker 2: Yes, the pick processor takes over. It's a sophisticated photochemical

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development process, often utilizing specific chemicals like Code Act ninety seven.

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This chemically fixes the data. The exposed silver hallied particles

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are converted into metallic silver, permanently fixing the data onto

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the film, creating a physical, immutable record.

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Speaker 1: That concept of immutability is the core selling point, isn't it.

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Speaker 2: It's the greatest strength beyond its physical durability. Once that

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film is chemically fixed, the pixel's values cannot be changed

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or deleted without physically destroying the film. This makes it

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an immutable film write once read many or worm medium.

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Speaker 1: And why is that so relevant in a world of

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constant data manipulation.

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Speaker 2: It addresses the concerns of data manipulation, corruption and crime.

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Since the data is physically fixed, it is described as unhackable.

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In the digital sense. You can't remotely alter the code

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for fraud or sabotage. You have a definitive, unaltered record

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of the data at the moment it was archived.

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Speaker 1: But the perennial issue with any archival medium is technological obsolescence.

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If the pickreader, the specific device needed to read the film,

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ceases to exist in five hundred years, what good is

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the data.

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Speaker 2: Still recognizes this, they are actively investigating and ensuring that

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the decoding methods are hardware agnostic. The binary code is

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represented by distinct light and dark pixels. So in theory,

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if future generations possess any image capturing device, a highly

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advanced camera, microscope, some future sensing a rate, anything that

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can see it, anything that can see it, anything capable

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of sampling those image patterns, they can decode the data

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without needing the original proprietary reader. The medium itself becomes

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the instruction manual.

473
00:24:54,559 --> 00:24:58,039
Speaker 1: That's reassuring. It forces us to think in completely different timelines.

474
00:24:58,519 --> 00:25:01,480
But pile is not the the only technology aiming for

475
00:25:01,519 --> 00:25:08,119
this multimillennial longevity. Let's look at the next generation inorganic storage. Specifically,

476
00:25:08,440 --> 00:25:10,640
the Germans startup Serabite.

477
00:25:10,759 --> 00:25:14,880
Speaker 2: Serabite is making a deliberate historical connection. They were inspired

478
00:25:14,920 --> 00:25:18,680
by the cuneiform tablets of ancient Mesopotamia, records pressed into

479
00:25:18,759 --> 00:25:22,000
clay and baked, which have lasted five thousand years wow.

480
00:25:22,240 --> 00:25:26,640
Their approach is to emulate that permanence using modern materials.

481
00:25:26,279 --> 00:25:30,319
Speaker 1: And their ceramic nanomemory writes data onto glass exactly.

482
00:25:30,319 --> 00:25:33,480
Speaker 2: They use widely available, inexpensive glass media, but instead of

483
00:25:33,519 --> 00:25:37,400
magnetic fields or chemical processing, they use femtosecond lasers. A

484
00:25:37,400 --> 00:25:41,200
femtosecond is one quadrillionth of a second, an incredibly short pulse.

485
00:25:41,599 --> 00:25:43,640
These lasers write the data onto the surface of the

486
00:25:43,680 --> 00:25:47,279
glass media, creating physical modifications. They're ultra durable.

487
00:25:47,480 --> 00:25:50,319
Speaker 1: That seems incredibly ambitious, especially regarding durability.

488
00:25:50,599 --> 00:25:53,559
Speaker 2: They are targeting an ultra durable five thousand year lifespan,

489
00:25:54,400 --> 00:25:57,559
and from a business and performance perspective, their roadmap is

490
00:25:57,599 --> 00:26:01,160
also ambitious. They plan to scale to one hundred petabytes

491
00:26:01,200 --> 00:26:04,279
per rack by twenty thirty with transfer rates.

492
00:26:04,039 --> 00:26:06,400
Speaker 1: Of two g tobs one hundred petabytes per rack.

493
00:26:06,640 --> 00:26:10,000
Speaker 2: That's one hundredfold capacity increase over their current pilots, and

494
00:26:10,039 --> 00:26:13,640
it aims to significantly outperform the performance and density of

495
00:26:13,720 --> 00:26:14,720
magnetic tape.

496
00:26:14,519 --> 00:26:17,960
Speaker 1: Storage, What is their current commercial viability? Where are they

497
00:26:18,000 --> 00:26:20,440
on that technology readiness level scale?

498
00:26:20,599 --> 00:26:24,480
Speaker 2: Cerobyte ceramic nano memory is currently at a technology readiness

499
00:26:24,519 --> 00:26:28,279
level or TRL of six. TRL is a system developed

500
00:26:28,279 --> 00:26:31,880
by NASA to track the maturity of technologies. Okay, TRL

501
00:26:31,880 --> 00:26:34,240
six means that prototypes are starting to be deployed and

502
00:26:34,279 --> 00:26:37,720
tested in a irrelevant environment, but it's not yet fully commercialized,

503
00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:40,000
which would be TRL nine. They're right on the cusp

504
00:26:40,079 --> 00:26:40,960
of market deployment.

505
00:26:41,119 --> 00:26:43,359
Speaker 1: TRL six is exciting, but it means they are still

506
00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:46,160
in the near term the deepest dive into long term

507
00:26:46,279 --> 00:26:50,559
archival storage that involves the material of life itself DNA.

508
00:26:50,799 --> 00:26:52,359
This is still highly experimental.

509
00:26:52,519 --> 00:26:56,720
Speaker 2: Correct DNA data storage leads the organic storage domain, and yes,

510
00:26:57,119 --> 00:26:59,559
it is still largely at the proof of concept stage,

511
00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:00,880
currently at.

512
00:27:00,759 --> 00:27:02,319
Speaker 1: TRL four TRL four.

513
00:27:02,440 --> 00:27:05,920
Speaker 2: TROL four means that the basic technological components have been

514
00:27:06,319 --> 00:27:10,240
integrated and tested in a laboratory environment, but it's not

515
00:27:10,359 --> 00:27:13,480
yet a true integrated system ready for deployment.

516
00:27:13,920 --> 00:27:17,839
Speaker 1: So why is everyone so excited about storing data in DNA?

517
00:27:18,480 --> 00:27:22,400
Speaker 2: Because of two unique properties that no other medium can match. First,

518
00:27:22,640 --> 00:27:26,680
just tremendous density. DNA is the most efficient information storage

519
00:27:26,720 --> 00:27:29,000
medium known to science. Because the data is stored at

520
00:27:29,039 --> 00:27:31,920
the molecular level, it's orders of magnitude denser than any

521
00:27:31,960 --> 00:27:35,720
silicon based technology we have. Theoretically, the entire world's data

522
00:27:35,720 --> 00:27:38,160
could be stored in a volume smaller than a cubic meter.

523
00:27:38,519 --> 00:27:41,680
Speaker 1: That's a staggering visualization. What's the second, and arguably more

524
00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:43,839
profound advantage sustainability.

525
00:27:44,599 --> 00:27:47,519
Speaker 2: Once the data is encoded into synthesize DNA strands and

526
00:27:47,559 --> 00:27:51,039
then dehydrated, it requires no energy whatsoever to retain the data,

527
00:27:51,039 --> 00:27:54,960
no entergy zero. Unlike server farms that require constant power

528
00:27:55,000 --> 00:27:58,319
and massive cooling systems, a vial of dry DNA simply

529
00:27:58,319 --> 00:28:01,359
sits there, perfectly preserved at room temperature in a dry

530
00:28:01,400 --> 00:28:05,319
atmosphere for thousands of years. It solves the massive energy

531
00:28:05,319 --> 00:28:07,079
cost of archival storage.

532
00:28:06,680 --> 00:28:08,720
Speaker 1: And the data integrity is phenomenal.

533
00:28:08,920 --> 00:28:12,400
Speaker 2: It is the media itself is incredibly robust, capable of

534
00:28:12,480 --> 00:28:17,440
lasting millennia. Furthermore, it is truly software defined storage. This

535
00:28:17,519 --> 00:28:20,119
means the data is the medium. There is no pre

536
00:28:20,240 --> 00:28:23,559
existing blank DNA media. The media is created as the

537
00:28:23,640 --> 00:28:26,440
data are written. It is an ideal green choice for

538
00:28:26,559 --> 00:28:29,920
archival storage and long term time capsule use cases, the

539
00:28:30,000 --> 00:28:33,039
data is effectively frozen and will remain readable as long

540
00:28:33,119 --> 00:28:35,920
as organic chemistry exists and we can sequence DNA.

541
00:28:36,359 --> 00:28:39,240
Speaker 1: It's astonishing to realize that Spalbard isn't just about preserving

542
00:28:39,279 --> 00:28:41,799
the past. It's an incubator for the technologies that will

543
00:28:41,799 --> 00:28:45,559
define humanity's relationship with information for the next five thousand years.

544
00:28:45,920 --> 00:28:48,000
Speaker 2: This brings us to perhaps the most critical part of

545
00:28:48,039 --> 00:28:51,640
this exploration. We've discussed the how and the what, but

546
00:28:51,759 --> 00:28:54,759
now we must address the why and the cost. These

547
00:28:54,799 --> 00:28:57,119
monumental efforts force us to step back and ask a

548
00:28:57,160 --> 00:29:00,519
harder question, what does the act of archie on this

549
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:04,720
scale reveal about humanity's relationship with a non human world.

550
00:29:05,039 --> 00:29:08,200
Speaker 1: You're touching on the critical perspective that Swalbard's history is

551
00:29:08,279 --> 00:29:12,279
rooted in a tradition of extractive resource depletion, going back

552
00:29:12,319 --> 00:29:15,559
to whaling, hunting and the nineteenth century coal rush.

553
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:19,960
Speaker 2: Yes, many critics view this conservation project, despite its necessity,

554
00:29:20,200 --> 00:29:24,640
as existing within a broader, frontierist world making trajectory. This

555
00:29:24,759 --> 00:29:28,079
framework suggests that the tools of conservation, though well intentioned,

556
00:29:28,200 --> 00:29:31,119
can sometimes perpetuate the economic model that caused the loss

557
00:29:31,119 --> 00:29:31,799
in the first place.

558
00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:34,559
Speaker 1: This is the concept of the salvage frontier. Can you

559
00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:35,960
unpack that critique for us?

560
00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:39,000
Speaker 2: The salvage frontier, a concept explored by scholars like Anna

561
00:29:39,039 --> 00:29:42,599
eld Singh, suggests that when we focus intensely on protecting

562
00:29:42,640 --> 00:29:46,200
small areas of biodiversity, like the seeds in the vault,

563
00:29:46,599 --> 00:29:50,400
we are operating within the same extractive paradigm. The critique

564
00:29:50,480 --> 00:29:54,720
argues that the project ultimately conserves the extractive resources nature

565
00:29:54,759 --> 00:29:56,160
relations of modern production.

566
00:29:56,799 --> 00:29:59,559
Speaker 1: In practical terms, that means we save the genetic material

567
00:29:59,599 --> 00:30:02,839
in the vault, but we don't fundamentally change the global

568
00:30:02,880 --> 00:30:06,480
agricultural model, the monoculture, high yield farming, the reliance on

569
00:30:06,559 --> 00:30:10,400
pesticides that led to the loss of diversity. Initially, we've

570
00:30:10,440 --> 00:30:13,400
simply created a technological patch or a lifeboat.

571
00:30:13,440 --> 00:30:16,599
Speaker 2: Precisely, the ex situ conservation world, the world of the

572
00:30:16,640 --> 00:30:21,559
scientific gene bank often views plant materials simply as extractable,

573
00:30:21,880 --> 00:30:24,599
quantifiable entities, what they term BioCapital.

574
00:30:24,640 --> 00:30:26,119
Speaker 1: BioCapital, these seeds.

575
00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:29,799
Speaker 2: Are suspended in time through what's called croopower, indefinitely available

576
00:30:29,799 --> 00:30:33,319
for future, undefined use by plant breeders, but disconnected from

577
00:30:33,319 --> 00:30:33,839
their origin.

578
00:30:34,160 --> 00:30:38,240
Speaker 1: That term BioCapital is powerful. It suggests that the value

579
00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:41,480
of the seed is reduced to its utilitarian genetic traits

580
00:30:41,920 --> 00:30:45,960
detached from the cultural, social, and ecological context where it evolved.

581
00:30:46,279 --> 00:30:50,400
Speaker 2: That is the core philosophical tension. The conservation system is

582
00:30:50,400 --> 00:30:54,720
focused on arresting change, on preserving a static resource, rather

583
00:30:54,799 --> 00:30:58,440
than embracing the dynamic, evolving diversity cultivated in situ, the

584
00:30:58,480 --> 00:31:02,680
biodiversity that exists in farmers' fields and in local knowledge systems.

585
00:31:03,440 --> 00:31:06,200
We save the genetic resource, but we often lose the

586
00:31:06,240 --> 00:31:07,519
story of the cultivator.

587
00:31:07,880 --> 00:31:11,559
Speaker 1: This philosophical tension led directly to a powerful counter narrative,

588
00:31:11,799 --> 00:31:14,559
one embodied by the Stalbard Arc art project.

589
00:31:14,720 --> 00:31:17,400
Speaker 2: The Svalbard Arc is a profound response to the techno

590
00:31:17,400 --> 00:31:20,200
optimism of the vault. This was an art project that

591
00:31:20,279 --> 00:31:25,640
offered conservation as commemoration. Instead of depositing seeds, pure BioCapital

592
00:31:25,720 --> 00:31:28,720
artists buried artworks in the permafrost right alongside the seed

593
00:31:28,759 --> 00:31:33,720
vault artworks. These pieces represented agrobiocultural diversity, the cultural histories,

594
00:31:33,880 --> 00:31:37,920
local practices, and traditional music that the scientific collections often exclude.

595
00:31:37,960 --> 00:31:39,279
Speaker 1: It feels like an act of mourning.

596
00:31:39,559 --> 00:31:43,279
Speaker 2: It absolutely is. It moves beyond the idea that technology

597
00:31:43,319 --> 00:31:47,720
can simply save everything. It forces an effective acknowledgment of

598
00:31:47,799 --> 00:31:51,200
loss and focuses on the cultural connection that is often

599
00:31:51,240 --> 00:31:55,480
reduced to genetic barcode. It's a very different ritual from

600
00:31:55,480 --> 00:31:58,039
the Vault's functional salvationist narrative.

601
00:31:58,400 --> 00:32:00,839
Speaker 1: What were some of the specific exact samples of the

602
00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:04,599
artworks buried? They highlight exactly what the SGSP misses.

603
00:32:04,759 --> 00:32:08,400
Speaker 2: One notable example came from the art collective Seeds in Service,

604
00:32:08,519 --> 00:32:12,720
an ecofeminist urban gardening project. They created this delicate pamphlet

605
00:32:12,799 --> 00:32:15,759
shaped like the Seed Vault entrance, made of hand crafted

606
00:32:15,799 --> 00:32:18,039
paper bags filled with seeds they had saved in their

607
00:32:18,119 --> 00:32:21,920
urban gardens. This emphasized the human labor, the local and

608
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:24,839
non institutional practice of seed saving, which is often.

609
00:32:24,599 --> 00:32:28,880
Speaker 1: Marginalized, and the documentation of ancient Khmer music playing arak

610
00:32:29,359 --> 00:32:32,039
is an incredibly poignant example of preserving the y.

611
00:32:32,279 --> 00:32:34,759
Speaker 2: The documentation of playing Iraq is critical. This is a

612
00:32:34,799 --> 00:32:38,599
traditional agricultural music often performed during shamanistic ceremonies to call

613
00:32:38,640 --> 00:32:42,000
spirits for rain. It's inextricably linked to the cultivation of

614
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:44,319
the land. It was nearly wiped out during the Career

615
00:32:44,440 --> 00:32:48,400
Rouge period and now faces immense threat from rapid modernization

616
00:32:48,519 --> 00:32:53,079
and cultural displacement. By archiving the documentation, the project argues

617
00:32:53,279 --> 00:32:56,559
that the loss of this traditional music, this cultural expression

618
00:32:56,559 --> 00:32:59,920
tied to food production, is just as irreversible and dramatic

619
00:33:00,200 --> 00:33:02,000
as the loss of a unique crop variety.

620
00:33:02,279 --> 00:33:05,680
Speaker 1: So this act of conservation as commemoration is a political act,

621
00:33:06,039 --> 00:33:10,319
resisting the idea of dismembering biocultural connections. It forces us

622
00:33:10,400 --> 00:33:13,279
to ask, are we saving the seed for its genetic

623
00:33:13,359 --> 00:33:17,200
utility or are we preserving the entire context of human

624
00:33:17,359 --> 00:33:19,519
ingenuity and our relationship with the land.

625
00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:21,440
Speaker 2: And that leads us back to the difference between a

626
00:33:21,440 --> 00:33:26,119
functional scientific archive and an emotional cultural testament. The Seed Vault,

627
00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:29,240
even as it rejects the doomsday narrative, often employs a

628
00:33:29,279 --> 00:33:33,720
symbolically charged, almost religious esthetic. It is frequently compared to

629
00:33:33,759 --> 00:33:37,720
Noah's Ark. The ARC Project, with its burial ceremony, expresses

630
00:33:37,759 --> 00:33:40,759
grief and focuses responsibility on the present, the need to

631
00:33:40,799 --> 00:33:44,039
cultivate a mournful hope today rather than simply relying on

632
00:33:44,039 --> 00:33:45,480
a future technological fix.

633
00:33:45,880 --> 00:33:49,440
Speaker 1: The ultimate synthesis of these two missions, the scientific and

634
00:33:49,480 --> 00:33:52,960
the cultural, is now being planned through a physical space.

635
00:33:53,319 --> 00:33:56,759
Speaker 2: That's the planned visitor center. The arc, designed by the

636
00:33:56,759 --> 00:34:01,000
acclaimed firm Snehetta, is intended to be the Bridge, an

637
00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:03,720
exhibition space designed to interpret the contents of both the

638
00:34:03,799 --> 00:34:07,400
SGSV and the AWA for the public. It will educate

639
00:34:07,519 --> 00:34:11,400
visitors about the distinctive geology of the Swalbard Archipelago, how

640
00:34:11,440 --> 00:34:14,840
it formed over millions of years, and the dramatic transformation

641
00:34:14,960 --> 00:34:15,920
it is undergoing now.

642
00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:19,599
Speaker 1: And the design itself contrasts the functional with the contemplative.

643
00:34:19,719 --> 00:34:23,519
Speaker 2: Yes, the journey into the facility moves from a rational

644
00:34:23,559 --> 00:34:27,079
and stoic entrant structure into a space that is designed

645
00:34:27,079 --> 00:34:30,159
to evoke the unique environment of the vaults. But the

646
00:34:30,239 --> 00:34:32,840
ultimate symbolic gesture is planned for the center of the

647
00:34:32,880 --> 00:34:34,119
exhibition space, which is.

648
00:34:34,119 --> 00:34:36,800
Speaker 1: A single live tree exactly.

649
00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:40,800
Speaker 2: A single live tree planted in a ceremonial space. This

650
00:34:40,880 --> 00:34:44,440
element is designed to invite immediate physical contemplation on climate

651
00:34:44,519 --> 00:34:47,519
change and the resilience of life on Earth. After learning

652
00:34:47,559 --> 00:34:50,039
about the billions of seeds and terrobrites of data stored

653
00:34:50,079 --> 00:34:53,599
safely inside the mountain, visitors will confront a living, breathing

654
00:34:53,679 --> 00:34:57,400
organism that suggests a need to actively reconnect the missions

655
00:34:57,440 --> 00:34:59,880
of the two vaults to ensure that what is archived

656
00:35:00,079 --> 00:35:02,159
inside can thrive outside.

657
00:35:02,400 --> 00:35:05,360
Speaker 1: It's the perfect analogy for the entire project. We are

658
00:35:05,360 --> 00:35:08,039
securing the blueprints for a world we hope still exists.

659
00:35:08,159 --> 00:35:11,239
But the greatest security lies in nurturing that world today.

660
00:35:11,519 --> 00:35:13,599
Speaker 2: When you reflect on what is contained deep inside the

661
00:35:13,599 --> 00:35:17,280
permafrost is fall barred, the scope is truly breathtaking. It's

662
00:35:17,280 --> 00:35:20,800
an astonishing collection. Millions of crop seeds, the entire public

663
00:35:20,840 --> 00:35:23,960
history of software code, global constitutions, and the world's most

664
00:35:24,000 --> 00:35:27,360
important musical expressions, all secured using cutting edge, millennia scale

665
00:35:27,360 --> 00:35:30,639
storage technologies like peak film, ceramic nano memory, and the

666
00:35:30,719 --> 00:35:32,599
ultimate frontier of DNA storage.

667
00:35:32,719 --> 00:35:36,360
Speaker 1: This isn't a passive project. It is a monumental, ongoing,

668
00:35:36,400 --> 00:35:40,000
and expensive attempt to ensure that, regardless of future crises,

669
00:35:40,239 --> 00:35:45,360
be the biological erosion, digital obsolescence, or human conflict, the

670
00:35:45,440 --> 00:35:50,199
fundamental building blocks of human civilization endure. It is humanity

671
00:35:50,239 --> 00:35:53,039
trying to solve its current problems by building a robust

672
00:35:53,079 --> 00:35:56,360
foundation for tomorrow, five thousand years into the future.

673
00:35:56,679 --> 00:36:00,559
Speaker 2: That archive represents an incredible, deep commitment to fall into

674
00:36:00,599 --> 00:36:03,719
the next fifty centuries. It suggests that despite our many

675
00:36:03,760 --> 00:36:06,639
self inflicted crises. We still believe in the continuation of

676
00:36:06,679 --> 00:36:09,679
knowledge in life, but that commitment to the future imposes

677
00:36:09,679 --> 00:36:11,280
a responsibility on us today.

678
00:36:11,559 --> 00:36:13,840
Speaker 1: If our legacy, from the genetic code that feeds us

679
00:36:13,880 --> 00:36:17,000
to the operating systems that organize our society is being

680
00:36:17,039 --> 00:36:19,400
stored in the ultimate time capsule, waiting for the people

681
00:36:19,440 --> 00:36:22,559
of three thousand AD to hopefully read it, the question

682
00:36:22,679 --> 00:36:25,280
is not if future generations will need this knowledge, but

683
00:36:25,480 --> 00:36:28,639
what responsibilities does the very act of preserving data for

684
00:36:28,719 --> 00:36:30,960
five millennia impose on us right now?

685
00:36:31,199 --> 00:36:33,760
Speaker 2: If we are archiving the code for a better future,

686
00:36:33,880 --> 00:36:36,760
should we not be actively building that future today? So,

687
00:36:37,079 --> 00:36:41,039
for everyone listening, what piece of your personal, cultural, or

688
00:36:41,039 --> 00:36:43,480
digital heritage do you believe is most essential for the

689
00:36:43,519 --> 00:36:45,960
future to inherit and what are you doing right now

690
00:36:45,960 --> 00:36:48,159
to safeguard it from the more mundane day to day

691
00:36:48,199 --> 00:36:49,639
threats of obsolescence, neglect,