有段时间没有更新了，就像这天气一样，冷了。自打上上周末，11月1号北京下了今冬第一场不大不小的雪后，气温是直线下降。今天早上更是奇特，黑黑的天，一边下着大颗的雪籽，一边闪着电打着雷，闪电还颇有型，是那种直直的从天打到地面的。“冬雷阵阵”，我靠，这不是“与君绝”的时候么？联想起现在上映的“2012”，真有点doomsday的味道。
维基百科的文言版
维基百科居然有文言文版，我今天偶然发现的，呵呵，居然把古汉语当成一个语言的版本，不过内容还真都是文言，就是内容少了点。此外，还有一个吴语版，倒！~
BBC种质资源系列-Life in the cold store
这篇说的是挪威斯瓦尔巴德岛上的那个大种质库，原文地址：http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7262525.stm，有段视频，BBC上的视频不知道用什么技术手段处理的，完全嗅探不到，下载不下来，气死了。
————————————-
Life in the cold store
 The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is built deep inside a mountain
 |
Take a tour inside the Arctic repository This week sees the formal opening of a vault designed to protect and preserve samples of valuable seeds. The “doomsday” vault in Svalbard can store more than four million batches of seeds, including the world’s major crop varieties. BBC environment correspondent Sarah Mukherjee is in Svalbard for the opening.
TUESDAY 26 FEBRUARY: THE BIG DAY
So – today’s the day that the seed vault opens. All the months of planning and preparation by the various press offices, that, in my experience, will almost always end in tears – for someone.
 |
 The opening of the “fail-safe” vault attracted a number of VIPs
|
And the more people involved, in different countries, with different priorities, the bigger the lake of woe you end up trying to navigate.
We had done the bulk of our broadcasting yesterday, for that very reason. Take, for example, a conversation last night I overheard between two of the organisers:
“I wonder whether it’s going to be a little claustrophobic in the vault – with 300 people in there.”
“300? I was told 150!”
There’s going to be a lot of journalists shouting before the end of the day, I predicted to a tall, blond Norwegian government official. “Oh, yes” he said, cheerfully.
This was after our interview live on the World Service with the Norwegian Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg.
We were setting up our equipment when a tanned, tall and very good looking man bounded up the stairs. Thinking he was a part of the advance security detail, I didn’t take much notice – but thought it was probably wise to be friendly.
“Hiya – I’m Sarah”
“Hello! I’m Jens”
Sarah interviews Norway’s Jens Stoltenberg
|
Now, obviously, being a consummate professional, I left it to the other female journalists to remark on Mr Stoltenberg’s handsomeness.
The thought did not even cross my mind that maybe I could suggest we were having technical difficulties, and the only way we could interview him would be to share a mic – which would mean I would have to sit on his lap.
I don’t have sexist, frivolous thoughts like that. I stuck to the issues.
Mr Stoltenberg told me that he has seen how his country is changing and getting warmer. “The vault is something we can do for the world” he says.
As he leaves, I notice that he and all his officials have matching cold weather outerwear. Red jackets and trousers, emblazoned with the Norwegian flag.
The overall effect is pretty impressive, like a sort of political Olympic team. I wonder whether the British Cabinet has thought of this.
MONDAY 25 FEBRUARY: INSIDE THE VAULT
I am sitting in the bar of our hotel, looking out at the heavy snow whirling about outside (and yes, dear reader, I do have a very small restorative at my side).
Around me, people are in smart suits and holding glasses of champagne. They’re off to the celebratory dinner tomorrow with, among other people, the prime minister of Norway.
The vault looks a little like something from a 1970s Bond film
|
We’ve spent a lot of the day in the vault. An interesting drive, mainly over ice, which our cameraman, Paul, relished – he has done the BBC’s all-terrain driving course, and it is not that often that you actually get to test it out. But why he couldn’t drive on the roads was beyond me.
The vault itself is a cross between something out of a 1970s Bond film and the tunnel that connects all the museums at South Kensington, London. Only that, of course, that tunnel is not cut into the permafrost.
The entrance is dark grey concrete with a sort of cracked glass top, which they light up at night. An armed guard stands outside – to fend off polar bears, apparently – with an ice sculpture of a polar bear by the side of the entrance (which I think is part of the opening ceremony, and not for target practice).
Ice sculptures
Large microphones have already been set up in front of the polar bear, so he may well be broadcasting to a grateful nation as well.
Once through the entrance, a long tunnel leads down into the permafrost, and an entrance chamber that appears to have been plastered in Artex. To add to the Austin Powers feel of the whole thing, ice sculptures back lit with blue lights were dotted about as part of the opening event.
The polar bear ice sculpture – the centre of attention
|
We are allowed inside one of the vaults, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Giant fans suck out all the available moisture, and it’s a steady -20C.
After 20 minutes, Paul’s hands had stopped working and we had to get the charcoal hand warmers out, and a combination of my face and my brain freezing simultaneously meant I was quite literally lost for words.
We’re interviewing Cary Fowler, the vault’s director, and I have to do the introduction 20 times or more as I feel the IQ points gelatinising (if that’s a word) in my head. Looking back at the tape when we come to edit, I see Dr Fowler’s face. This time, he’s the one who looks like he’s going to cry.
One of the most striking things about Svalbard is the weather. As we prepared for the trip, the producer, Keith, was tearing his hair out trying to prepare for the trip while watching a Longyearbyen weather website. “It’s changing every hour! What do we take?” he kept asking. Every hour, seemingly, the weather forecast changed.
And it certainly does. This morning, it was heart-liftingly clear and beautiful, the snow-covered mountains crystal clear in a blue-pink sky. Half an hour later, said mountains were obscured by biting, whirling snow. Amazing – but I’m glad I’m just a visitor.
SUNDAY 24 FEBRUARY: CHILLY WELCOME
“There are flowers in my garden already; it’s very mild.”
The seeds will be stored in vaults at the end of a 125m long tunnel
|
Professor Tore Skroppa, director of the Norwegian Forest and Landscape Institute, casts his mind back to his garden north of the Norwegian capital, Oslo.
We find ourselves sitting next to each other on the flight from Oslo to Longyearbyen, the capital of Svalbard – the most northerly scheduled flight in the world.
As we pass over one breathtaking view after another, brilliant white peaks set in glittering cobalt seas, the professor points out that much of this water should be ice at this time of year.
He has been going up regularly to see the progress of the vault, set more than 200m deep within the permafrost.
But it’s those flowers in his garden that worry him at the moment. “There should be more than a metre of snow in Oslo at the moment – there’s hardly any in places.”
Climate change is one of the reasons the vault has been created – but by no means the only one.
Professor Skroppa points out those more than 40 countries have had some or all of their seed banks destroyed in recent years – whether through war, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, or through floods or other natural disasters, as in the Philippines.
The mountains get higher and whiter, and the sea looks oilier – almost gelatinous in places – but still not frozen.
 |
But as we leave the plane, the cold – all -13C (9F) of it, plus a whipping wind to drive the temperatures down a good few degrees more – doesn’t so much whack you, as sucker punch you.
This isn’t so bad, you think – and then you realise, on the short walk from the plane to the arrivals hall, that you’ve lost all feeling in your toes.
Longyearbyen has very much a frontier feel to it, all low-rise wooden houses and lots of unidentifiable buildings made mainly of pipes (and men with guns to scare the polar bears away. Really.)
Indeed, it used to be a mining town – although only one of the coal mines is still working.
The loss of feeling rises towards my knees as I follow our cameraman, Paul, around, as we try to get as many pictures in the can as possible before we lose what little light there is (we’re so far north that the Sun in fact sets in the south, although “sets” isn’t quite the right word anyway as it never really rises at this time of year).
I don’t want to look like a big girl’s blouse and hide, crying because my nose feels like it’s about to fall off, in the car.
But then again, that’s what I really, really want to do – especially when we stop to film the frozen part of the fjord and it starts snowing.
In the distance, I see a young couple strolling down the snow-covered main street with a pram. I’m a big girl’s blouse.
I make up some excuse about having to call London, and go and sit in the car. And cry.
BBC种质资源系列-Seed bank ‘running out of funds’
这篇比较早了，2008.10.3，有一年了，讲千禧种子库没钱了，哈哈，看看他们如何做预算的吧，原文链接地址：http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/sussex/7651040.stm
——————————————-
Seed bank ‘running out of funds’
Scientists have already managed to bring a plant “back from the dead”
|
Groundbreaking projects at the Millennium Seed Bank at Wakehurst Place in Sussex may have to be axed because of a £100m shortfall.
The money is needed over the next 10 years to maintain its work to store rare seeds from the whole plant world.
It was set up in the year 2000 with the aim of collecting all plants on earth.
Head of seed conservation department, Dr Paul Smith, said: “It works out about £2,000 per species, which is a bargain, I think, in anybody’s terms.”
He added: “We’re talking about £100m over 10 years, to deliver a quarter of the world’s plant species in safe secure storage. That’s good value.
“The key thing here is the seeds that we collect and conserve and carry out research on have importance for people’s livelihoods.
“We’re all worried about climate change.
“We need to make sure we have those species before they disappear, so that we have options for their use.”
Plant ‘back from dead’
The seed bank has enough money to keep its operation running until the end of next year.
Owned and managed by the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, it was founded with the intention of protecting plants from extinction.
Several thousand seeds of each species are kept at the site.
Teams of scientists and technicians there are aiming to have banked 10% of the world’s wild flowering plants by 2010.
They are aiming to have collected 25% by 2020, depending on whether more funding can be secured.
The Millennium Seed Bank has the capacity to store up to half the world’s wild flowering plant species.
Scientists have already “brought back from the dead” a plant that has not been seen in its native habitat for more than 70 years.
Botanists helped to germinate the last remaining seeds of Belgian grass in 2005. Bromus bromoideus, once common in hayfields around Liege and Rocheford, declined rapidly from the early 1900s.
BBC种质资源系列-Bank on seeds-the world’s buffer
这一篇比较牛，出现了好多业界名人，像Steven Hopper、Luigi Guarino之类的。原文链接为：http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8303753.stm，更新日期是2009.10.13
———————————
Bank on seeds – the world’s buffer
 |
|
VIEWPOINT
Steve Hopper |
Conserving genetic diversity in botanic gardens and seed banks is a sensible and practical precaution for an uncertain future, says Steve Hopper. With species loss at an unnatural high and with climate change threatening many ecosystems, he argues that the need to invest in these facilities has never been greater.
|
  Plant diversity is invaluable to humanity; it sustains us now, and in the future it will enable us to adapt, innovate and ultimately to survive  |
Kew, like other botanic gardens around the world, provides inspiration, enjoyment, tranquillity and learning to millions of visitors of all ages and cultural backgrounds.
But in a time of ever-increasing environmental challenges, including massive loss of biodiversity and climate change, the role of botanic gardens is much wider.
Collectively, we have the knowledge and expertise to make a very real and positive difference to biodiversity conservation around the world.
In the lead-up to the United Nations’ International Year of Biological Diversity in 2010, and as we approach the UN’s critical climate conference in Copenhagen in just a few weeks, it is clear that the challenges we face and the potential of botanic gardens to help solve these challenges through science-based plant conservation have never been greater.
As the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew celebrates its 250th anniversary, we are assessing how best we can use our tremendous resources to address the critical environmental issues of our time for the sake of our own well-being and for future generations.
It is one of the world’s greatest collections of information relating to wild plants (including living plants, preserved specimens, plant DNA, seeds, library, art, archives and economic botany) as well as the knowledge, expertise and partnerships developed over our 250-year history.
As the UN-backed study The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) begins to put a value on natural capital – the forests, deserts, oceans, rivers, animals and plants that we rely on in a million ways – it is critical that we halt the squandering of these precious resources.
Essential growth
Plants absorb carbon and provide oxygen, thereby providing air we can breathe and helping to regulate the climate.
Pipeline projects include restoring the ecology of damaged areas
|
They provide food, medicine, shelter, clean water and fertile soil.
Plant diversity is invaluable to humanity; it sustains us now, and in the future it will enable us to adapt, innovate and ultimately to survive.
Kew’s response to the increasingly urgent need to address environmental challenges including climate change is outlined in the Breathing Planet programme.
With the ultimate objective of a world where plant diversity is conserved, restored and more sustainably used to improve the quality of human lives, the Breathing Planet programme will be achieved through seven strategies that:
• accelerate targeted scientific discovery of plant and fungal diversity and make information on plant diversity much more readily accessible
• help identify species and regions most at risk in terms of plant and fungal diversity loss
• contribute to conservation programmes on the ground
• secure 25% of the world’s plants in seed banks by 2020, and enable the sustainable use of seeds for human benefit
• accelerate the science of restoration ecology and enhance global networks involved in repair of the Earth using plant diversity
• bring a new focus to the use of local plants for local people in agricultural and urban lands
• ensure that Kew uses its World Heritage collections and gardens to engage with visitors on site and online across the world in devising new ways of sustainable living through plant-based solutions, science, conservation and community involvement.
At the heart of this future vision is Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank partnership.
|
There is no technological reason why any plant species should become extinct. It is simply a question of priorities |
Described by Sir David Attenborough as “perhaps the most ambitious conservation initiative ever”, the partnership will announce on 15 October the banking and conservation of 10% of the world’s plant species.
This enormous achievement has been accomplished with over 120 partners in 54 countries.
This truly global partnership has delivered ambitious conservation targets on time and under budget.
Key collection
Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank is a unique, global asset. It is the largest facility of its kind in the world and contains the world’s most diverse seed collections.
Over the past 10 years, more than 3.5 billion seeds from 25,000 species have been collected and stored in their country of origin and in Kew.
Species are chosen by country partners according to whether they are rare or endangered or of particular potential use – for example as medicine, food, animal fodder or shelter.
This collection addresses concerns about human adaptation to climate change highlighted in the Stern Review, and has the potential to make a major contribution to the delivery of the Millennium Development Goals.
Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank partnership is a tangible first step in bringing the enormous wealth of expertise in the world’s foremost plant science institutions to bear on the major environmental challenges of the 21st Century, including food security and sustainable energy as well as loss of biodiversity and climate change.
Specimens are chosen and collected by country partners
|
The significance and value of the partnership grows daily, and this remarkable collaboration provides a real message of hope and steadfast achievement in a world where doom and gloom about the environment is becoming common currency.
This milestone is an inspirational outcome, and all involved in this fine global achievement should be warmly congratulated.
However, there is much more to be done, and Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank partnership will grow and develop with the aim of conserving and enabling use of 25% of plant species by 2020.
In addition, we aim to increase capacity on the ground and develop areas relatively new to science, such as restoration ecology to restore degraded habitats.
Despite its achievements, the project is unfunded from 2010 and to achieve its goals, Kew and its partners will need the support of governments, corporations and individuals.
When we lose a species, we have no idea what the scale of that loss truly is.
Every species we conserve has potential value, and there is no technological reason why any plant species should become extinct. It is simply a question of priorities.
Investing a small fraction of the world’s financial resources in biodiversity conservation and science over the next few decades would reap irreplaceable long-term rewards.
Professor Stephen Hopper is director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
The Green Room is a series of opinion articles on environmental topics running weekly on the BBC News website
Do you agree with Steve Hopper? Are seed banks and botanic gardens important conservation resources? Is funding them a good investment for governments, companies and individuals? Is preserving genetic diversity a buffer against environmental impacts such as climate change?
The agricultural dimension is often overlooked in these discussions. Let us not forget that our cultivated biodiversity (crops and their wild relatives) is also threatened. The world’s genebanks and their collections of crop diversity will be vital to any effort to adapt agriculture to climate change. Yet their funding is for the most part not secure. we need to do something about this — and soon — or we will live to regret it.
Luigi Guarino, Rome, Italy
Nice article Professor Hopper. Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank is a great concept. Our planet urgently requires such activities. We have to start and strengthen such type of parallel activities to neutralize the speed and potential of present form of human civilization. The climate change movement is not there to oppose or hurt anybody. It is there to transform the existing pattern and then to support the new pattern. The environmental challenges, we are facing today are the second half part or the consequences of the previous technological developments. Often technology is based on the immediate requirements and the priorities of the human beings. The long term aspects of the technologies are always overlooked. So many Noble prizes have been awarded to the pioneers of the technological concepts, but the quality of environment on our planet is rapidly going down. Definitely, there were things, more important than the activities what we preferred to support earlier. We are not outsiders; in fact we are part of this planet. In earlier centuries, we have ‘taken’ lot of things from this planet. This is the time we have to ‘return’ to the planet. All our efforts may become null and void unless we do not check the growth of human population.
Sanjay Singh Thakur, Indore,India
Read “Where Our Food Comes From–Retracing Nikolay Vavilov’s Quest to End Famine” by Gary Paul Nabhan Island Press (2009).
anna, Pullman, WA
Fot me it just defies common sense logic that people can not, do not, or Will not make the connection between emmissionf of internal combustions engines, Especially DIE-SEL, and plant, tree, and Human Health issues! Thank you again for your insightful article on biodiversity, I hope we as a world population, can come to recognize and take action, before it is too late for all of us, however, here in the USA, that it Highly Doubtful! Keep up the phenomenal writing!
PATRICIAaPESEK, San Antonio, Texas USA
Steve Hopper’s idea is marvellous. There are millions of medicinal herbs as well which are being vanished from mountain areas as well as in forests due to climatical conditions around the globe. Every country in the world has botanists working in agricultural research institute, it should be a worldwide campaign to conserve seeds of various plants, herbs, flowers etc. in these research institions, and they should be supported to organize seed banks. We must vigorously support this idea.
shaukat ali chughtai, Lahore, Pakistan
My friend and I, both amateur botanists, have been collecting seeds for this project for the last three years through Chicago Botanic Garden’s auspices…seeds which have also been going to the Seeds of Success programme here in the US. So yes, as you may guess, I believe it is vital to continue with this; and that Botanic Gardens can and should be playing a huge role in our conservation efforts globally.
Hilary Cox, Avon, Indiana, USA
Absolutely. Botanic gardens have been one of the very first methods used by botanists to conserve plant diversity. However their ability to conserve genetic diversity have been limited in view of the space they need. But many botanic gardens now have established seed banks which significantly improve their capacity to conserve greater genetic diversity of the immumerable species they maintain in their garden. Genetic diversity is the raw material required to allow plants adapt to changes in their environment and with the menace of climate change that diversity is becoming even more important for the survival of our plants and animals. We are reaching the point of no return. Governments and funding agencies must realise that conserving biodiversity is fundamental OUR own survial and that all the “other” investments they are making will be of no use if our life support system is not secured.
Ehsan Dulloo, Rome, Italy
Of course funding them is worth while. However, these should be for a ‘doomsday’ scenario, we should not use them as a get out clause to continue our destruction of biodiversity. As far as we know this is the only planet that supports life in the universe. Though there may be others there will be none like ours and hence we have a huge responsibility. We are the first chance life on this planet has had at protection, yet we are doing the exact opposite. Time to grow up as a species, we may be advanced, but we certainly aren’t civilised.
Chris, Bristol
This work is vital. The article reveals a couple of scary side issues. Bio diversity must be seen as a parrallel issue running along side climate change; boh these problems are symptoms of the real problem; too much human activity. If, however, biodiversity is simply flagged as a subset of climate change, then big business will simply say; “oh, well, we fix the little glitch with CO2 emissions; we fix everything else and we can carry on ‘more more more’ ripping up the planet. Actually we can carry on killing off species at a fatal rate even if we were to get a zero carbon emissions economy from out fo thin air. So first of all this issue must stand and ring the alarms in it’s own right. Second scary thing is; for these seeds to be viable we need to take them out of their storage flasks, plant them, and germinate them so often to keep them going; they cannot be stored indefinately – the problem is; if we have ripped up so much planet that there is no room for these plants now . . . . where exactly are we going to plant them out in 20 years time to refresh the seed stocks; where exactly do you put a stand of giant redwoods trees to get to seed bearing age in the middle of a concrete building site ?? No; I fear this stuff is going because we cannot get our heads around the idea leaving bits of the planet alone because we need to. So we store all this stuff in a tunnel, in liquid nitrogen; but where do we plant them when the time comes. All in all the really sensible thing to do is to store “us” in the tunnels in the nitrogen flasks and leave the plants up here to get on with repairing the damage we have done to the planet. So guys; I read these stories about seed-arks; my only hope is somebody remembers to leave a sign on the door; “Will the last person left alive please let the plants out ”
steven walker, Penzance