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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Wow, Hey, this is Alison and welcome

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Speaker 1: to the podcast with me. I have Robert Lamb Hey

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Speaker 1: today and we're talking about gene banks. So, Robert, what's

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Speaker 1: the oldest example of gene banks? What a listeners know

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Speaker 1: about gene banks? Well, it's really kind of impossible to

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Speaker 1: get into gene banks without bringing up the classic Biblical story, legend, myth,

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Speaker 1: etcetera of uh Noah in the Ark. I think everybody

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Speaker 1: pretty much knows this one. Um, it's tail older than

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Speaker 1: the Bible. There's a big flood coming. Maybe it's because

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Speaker 1: there's just a lot of water rising. Maybe it's because

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Speaker 1: humans are horrible and God's punishing them. Yeah, he's pretty

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Speaker 1: pretty rough. So this guy Noah decides he's gonna build

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Speaker 1: this great big boat and he's gonna put two of

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Speaker 1: every animal on it so can ride out the storm,

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Speaker 1: and then when the waters come back down, the animals

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Speaker 1: can get back off and continue what they're doing. So

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Speaker 1: basically he is safeguarding the future by stockpiling the animals.

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Speaker 1: And uh, it's basically the same the same deal we

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Speaker 1: have going on with gene banks today. And also they

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Speaker 1: our efforts tend to go along the same lines that

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Speaker 1: either some sort of natural disaster will will will make

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Speaker 1: us make it necessary to replan everything, or that will

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Speaker 1: end up, you know, destroying ourselves and need to rebuild

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Speaker 1: after that. It's such an optimistic guy. So Noah's is

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Speaker 1: Noah is kind of our oldest example. But we've been

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Speaker 1: doing gene banks ever since we turned from hunter gatherers

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Speaker 1: into a negrarian society. We've been farmers for quite a while.

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Speaker 1: Archaeologists have found evidence of seed banks as far back

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Speaker 1: as which isn't that much um later than when we

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Speaker 1: first turned into agrarian societies around eight thousand BC, so

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Speaker 1: we've been farmers for a while. Farming has evolved definitely.

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Speaker 1: You know, you can get into the whole genetic food,

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Speaker 1: genetically modified food and stuff like that, but it's still

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Speaker 1: basically the same gig where growing these massive amount of

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Speaker 1: food crops. I mean, picture of the classic example of

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Speaker 1: you know, a field of corn billowing under the Iowa sky.

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Speaker 1: That's what we're talking about. But the problem with modern

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Speaker 1: farming is that concentrating on a single crop leads to

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Speaker 1: big problems because then you get things like the Great

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Speaker 1: potato famine. Do you remember the Great Potato Famine? Not

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Speaker 1: personally personally, but but yeah, if you grow too dependent

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Speaker 1: on a single crop and that creates a just a

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Speaker 1: massive weakness. You know, it's like it's like if you

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Speaker 1: only eat you sugar puffs and then you go to

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Speaker 1: the store one day and they're sold out, you know,

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Speaker 1: what are you gonna have for breakfast? Cheerious? Well, anyway,

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Speaker 1: the the organism that wiped out all those potatoes was

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Speaker 1: called late light, I believe, and that nasty little pest

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Speaker 1: is still around, and there are lots of other nasty

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Speaker 1: little paths that can do the same thing. So the

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Speaker 1: point of concentrating on a single food crop is is problematic.

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Speaker 1: And that's why it's kind of like putting your eggs

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Speaker 1: in one basket, if you will accept you know, it's

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Speaker 1: corn or it's soybeans there, it's whatever it is. So

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Speaker 1: more recent examples of some organisms that can do serious

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Speaker 1: damage are called at like rust fungus I guess can

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Speaker 1: just totally make life a living hell for soybeans. So

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Speaker 1: farmers have decided, well, we're not going to take this risk,

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Speaker 1: so they've started stockpiling. I mean they've always stockpiled. But

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Speaker 1: now they've taken some pretty serious measures for stockpiling. There's

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Speaker 1: this one place called the North Central Regional Plant Introduction Station,

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Speaker 1: kind of a long name, but it's a simple concept,

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Speaker 1: and the concept is stockpiling seeds. Um. At this one facility,

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Speaker 1: they have about ten thousand varieties of corn. That's a

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Speaker 1: lot of corn. I had no idea there were so

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Speaker 1: many different varieties of corn, right, and not not all

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Speaker 1: of that is even going to be necessarily be corn

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Speaker 1: that we can eat or or has any kind of

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Speaker 1: a um a crop. It's intral But but part part

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Speaker 1: of the part of the plan is that while while

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Speaker 1: one to the species of corn that that we depend on,

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Speaker 1: for instance, something happens to that, then a we could

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Speaker 1: be able to come back and replant the same corn

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Speaker 1: based on our genetic backup for that, but we'd also

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Speaker 1: have various other gene profiles to go front. For instance,

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Speaker 1: if we needed to engineer a new corn that met

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Speaker 1: our dietary needs but also was resilient against whatever a

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Speaker 1: kind of new biological or environmental threat was posed to it. Right,

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Speaker 1: So farmers are making sure that we're never going to

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Speaker 1: run out of that high fructose corn syrup for your

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Speaker 1: sugar puffs exactly. So seed banks kind of help protect

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Speaker 1: our food supply, but there are other there are other

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Speaker 1: purposes for seed banks and gene banks in general, right, Um,

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Speaker 1: Like like I mentioned with the corn example, basically, what

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Speaker 1: we're doing and that is we're protecting biodiversity. If you

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Speaker 1: think to go back to the supernet market analogy, there's

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Speaker 1: a whole lot of stuff in the supermarket and just

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Speaker 1: because you only are buying sugar puffs and and pepsi

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Speaker 1: doesn't mean that there's a lot of valuable stuff in there.

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Speaker 1: Maybe you just don't need it yet. So if you

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Speaker 1: if you were only stockpiling pepsi and sugar puffs, what

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Speaker 1: are you gonna need do when you need penicillin? What

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Speaker 1: are you gonna do when you need this out or

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Speaker 1: the other? Basically, Uh, you know, we we get so

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Speaker 1: many different medications from you know, the natural world around us.

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Speaker 1: There's so many you know, potential cures out there that

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Speaker 1: we haven't even discovered. So we want to protect that

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Speaker 1: biodiversity now, um, stockpiling things that we don't even necessarily

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Speaker 1: have a need for as far as you know, our

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Speaker 1: own human greed goes. But uh, you know, we'll be

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Speaker 1: able to possibly exploit them in the future, so it's

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Speaker 1: a preemptive measure, if you will, right, So you know,

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Speaker 1: towards that end, we um, we're stockpiling not just not

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Speaker 1: not just a plant genes, but also animal genes and

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Speaker 1: and even human genes. Well, of course we're animals right now.

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Speaker 1: Of course we've been doing the we've been doing seed

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Speaker 1: banks for a while. I don't know if you wanted

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Speaker 1: to get into seed banks. Sure, well I did tell

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Speaker 1: you a little bit about seed banks and some of

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Speaker 1: the history behind that and why farmers love them so much.

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Speaker 1: But I actually wanted to talk about one of the

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Speaker 1: coolest seed banks I think is around, and that is

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Speaker 1: up in the Arctic um in a place called swall Bar, Norway.

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Speaker 1: Did you say that was a coffee table at Ikia,

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Speaker 1: I think so. I think we have one at home. Um. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: these Scandinavians teamed up with an organization called the Global

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Speaker 1: Diversity Trust to store seeds of about every crop of

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Speaker 1: food crop in the world. UM. So that's gonna be

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Speaker 1: about two million or so samples, which is pretty amazing

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Speaker 1: and it's also a pretty huge task. So the nickname

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Speaker 1: for This bank in particular is called the doomsday vault,

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Speaker 1: which is right up your alley. It seems like, because

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Speaker 1: you're a bit of a fatalistic guy, well keep its

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Speaker 1: signing me the fatalist articles. Um, so they've fortified this

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Speaker 1: vault like crazy. So nuclear war, nuclear war wouldn't be

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Speaker 1: a problem. Global warming, no problem. It's a it's actually

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Speaker 1: it's built into the side of an Arctic mountain cave.

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Speaker 1: And it's not just built into the side of the cave,

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Speaker 1: it's raised up about two feet. So if the sea

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Speaker 1: levels were to rise and I'm talked to comelted and

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Speaker 1: global warming hell ensued, essentially this thing would be protected.

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Speaker 1: The only thing it basically can't survive is a direct

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Speaker 1: nuclear hit. And you know what are they going to

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Speaker 1: do about that? It's not really a priority as far

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Speaker 1: as targets go, I would hope. And and of course,

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Speaker 1: another advantage to that, I'm assuming it's that is it

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Speaker 1: since most or are a number of seeds anyway, will

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Speaker 1: will sustain at a at a freezing temperature, right if

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Speaker 1: the power goes out, you know, say that happens in

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Speaker 1: nuclear war, it seems pretty likely scenario. Um, these seeds

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Speaker 1: are going to survive. So that's a good thing. So

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Speaker 1: if you're one of the lucky survivors post global calamity,

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Speaker 1: then you should probably make your way up to the

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Speaker 1: small bar vault up in Norway because that's where all

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Speaker 1: the food is. That is where all the food is.

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Speaker 1: But you might have to wait in line. Please be

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Speaker 1: polite people. I guess that people are pretty serious about

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Speaker 1: protecting their seeds. Oh there's a really great story that

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Speaker 1: I wanted to share here if I if I might,

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Speaker 1: before we move on to animal banks. So during World

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Speaker 1: War two, a bunch of scientists, a bunch of Russian

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Speaker 1: scientists in Lenning Grad stayed behind and they were going

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Speaker 1: to protect their gene bank for seeds from Hitler. Hitler's

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Speaker 1: troops were getting close and closer, and these guys were

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Speaker 1: so serious about protecting the genetic legacy, if you will,

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Speaker 1: that they they stayed behind and we're protecting the facility.

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Speaker 1: And to the scientists actually died of starvation while they

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Speaker 1: were protecting ensuring the future food supply. So um, it's

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Speaker 1: pretty serious business. But of course we're not just talking

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Speaker 1: about plants. Were also talking about animals as well, right,

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Speaker 1: And a lot of our animal gene banks. It's uh.

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Speaker 1: The technology involved isn't quiet is useful at the moment.

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Speaker 1: Our ability to replant obviously we can replant seeds, and

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Speaker 1: our ability to clone plants is a lot more advance

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Speaker 1: in our ability to lone wolverines or or the light.

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Speaker 1: But we're still making sure that we protect especially endangered animals,

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Speaker 1: which is uh, which is more of a test than

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Speaker 1: you might think, considering what I think we have somewhere

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Speaker 1: in the neighborhood of they are about six hundred to

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Speaker 1: seven hundred animals that make the cut on the US nine.

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Speaker 1: In fact more and if current trans continue, science to

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Speaker 1: predict more than a thousand species of mammals will face

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Speaker 1: extinction in the next thirty years. So it's a lot

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Speaker 1: of work stockpiling all of that. And it's not as

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Speaker 1: simple as just um, you know, even though there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of genetic materials, say in a mammal's hair, um,

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Speaker 1: most of these efforts are a little more involved. For instance,

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Speaker 1: some Chinese scientists have been busy basically stockpiling anything they

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Speaker 1: can get off of panda, everything from panda hair to eggs, sperm,

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Speaker 1: et cetera. So I I just imagine that when a

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Speaker 1: pandadize in China, they just complete disassemble it. Their efforts

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Speaker 1: in India to to eventually bring back clones of an

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Speaker 1: India and cheetah that had gone extinct. You know, again,

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Speaker 1: a lot of this is just protecting animals that we

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Speaker 1: have either already wiped out or may potentially wipe out

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Speaker 1: through the unbalanced that we, you know, bring to the world.

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Speaker 1: You have to wonder that why they picked certain animals,

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Speaker 1: Like why do they pick the panda because it's cute?

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Speaker 1: That's that's really the only reason. They're not good to

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Speaker 1: eat at all. So I've heard within the whole realm

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Speaker 1: of animal banks. Of course, they're human gene banks as well,

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Speaker 1: and it sounds like kind of a sci fi type

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Speaker 1: of concept, But you guys are familiar with us because

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Speaker 1: they're essentially called sperm banks, among other names. So you

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Speaker 1: might think of a sperm bank is someplace where a

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Speaker 1: college kid goes to make a little extra money to

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Speaker 1: go out on a Friday Saturday night. But there's a

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Speaker 1: bit more of a science to it these days. And

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Speaker 1: they've been around since or so, although people have been

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Speaker 1: donating sperm since I think I read it was about

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Speaker 1: the eighteenth century, they just weren't as organized about it. UM.

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Speaker 1: In the mid twentieth century, they just figured out that

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Speaker 1: freezing it would help ensure survivability. So a lot of

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Speaker 1: our efforts with the human gene banks that really gets

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Speaker 1: gets into the whole effort to UM to map the

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Speaker 1: human genome and UH and even map um the human

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Speaker 1: epic genome. A lot of it is just canvassing the

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Speaker 1: genetics of say, whole populations. For instance, there's a Iceland's

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Speaker 1: decode project, which stores genetic material for research. Actually because

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Speaker 1: basically genetics are again there, they're blueprint for who we

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Speaker 1: are and as we, you know, try and fix the

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Speaker 1: various problems with who we are, we uh, we we

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Speaker 1: need to know how we got there. China is currently

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Speaker 1: uh which currently has a number of efforts in the works.

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Speaker 1: Um they're dissy mapping the genetic for residents of a

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Speaker 1: city by the name of it. I may be saying

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Speaker 1: this wrong, sounds kidding me. That's as close as I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna get. Again, A lot of this is not. It's

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Speaker 1: not just a matter of are we going to bring

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Speaker 1: people back later? Because I mean, old, who's gonna do it?

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Speaker 1: If we wipe ourselves out right, But but it's about

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Speaker 1: better understanding our own genetic legacy, understanding um, the way

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Speaker 1: janes lead to various health problems or or immunities. Well,

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Speaker 1: and then you also get into stuff like personalized genetic

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Speaker 1: testing these days, where we're going to write an article

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Speaker 1: about this soon. You can essentially spin into a tube

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Speaker 1: and it will come back to you analyze for a

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Speaker 1: set of specific genetic traits. UM. But with the laboratories

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Speaker 1: who offer this testing aren't telling you is that they

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Speaker 1: are storing your sample to build this massive genetic database,

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Speaker 1: if you will, so it'll be interesting to see what

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Speaker 1: some of the data big come up with, and also

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Speaker 1: some of the ethical implications of that. I mean, how

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Speaker 1: do you feel about your DNA being out there? So

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Speaker 1: we're quickly reaching a point where we could conceivably feel

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Speaker 1: fill a large wooden boat with genetic information for much

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Speaker 1: of the plant life, animal life, and and human life

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Speaker 1: on earth. So, but the problem with that boat, a

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Speaker 1: wooden boat, I wish you really do a wooden boat,

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Speaker 1: UM probably cheaper. So if that boat didn't make it,

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Speaker 1: and that's what people are really worried about, we have

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Speaker 1: to make sure that we protect our legacy. So they've

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Speaker 1: had some crazy ideas around this, haven't they. They have, Um,

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Speaker 1: I think the big one that comes to mind is

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Speaker 1: creating a doomsday arc um and putting it on the moon,

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Speaker 1: because the idea, I guess, is that while we we

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Speaker 1: might just completely destroy everything here, probably won't spill over

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Speaker 1: to the moon just yet. So the moon. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: and then of course there are a lot of problems

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Speaker 1: with that. It's like, you get it would be kind

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Speaker 1: of a I see endeavor to get all that genetic

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Speaker 1: information up there, and then once it's up there, Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, how is a you know, post apocalyptic society

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Speaker 1: going to even know about the genes on the moon,

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Speaker 1: much less get back there? I mean, how many times

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Speaker 1: have we been here, been there? You know, not not

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Speaker 1: that that much. Well, I was slated to get back

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Speaker 1: there in two thousand twenties to leave some genes behind.

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Speaker 1: Maybe the astronauts can take along that wouldn't vote full

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Speaker 1: of genetic materials. Yeah, I think ultimately one of the

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Speaker 1: things about it is that it kind of ends up

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Speaker 1: being like you know, sending golden plates out into the

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Speaker 1: into the stars, or you know, or bearing a time capsule.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's it's more about our legacy and putting

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Speaker 1: something out there that says, hey, we were here and

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Speaker 1: we did this. Then actually, you know, safeguarding you know,

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Speaker 1: future generations against you know, our own self destructive tendencies. Right,

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Speaker 1: everybody leaves loves to leave a legacy. So I think

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Speaker 1: we about covered it. But if you are interested in

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Speaker 1: gene thanks or doomsday aults, or hey, even nuclear winter,

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Speaker 1: why don't you go on over to how stuff works

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Speaker 1: dot com to read some more articles. Thanks for listening.

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Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics. Is

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Speaker 1: it how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,

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Speaker 1: check out our blogs on the house stuff works dot

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