Syria: Syrian War Spurs First Withdrawal from Doomsday Arctic Seed Vault

Sep 21, 2015 | Alister Doyle, Reuters
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Syria's civil war has prompted the first withdrawal of seeds from a "doomsday" vault built in an Arctic mountainside to safeguard global food supplies, officials said on Monday. The seeds, including samples of wheat, barley and grasses suited to dry regions, have been requested by researchers elsewhere in the Middle East to replace seeds in a gene bank near the Syrian city of Aleppo that has been damaged by the war.