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[unrar]

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[tanqeedorg]

Chinese and Pakistan border guards at Khunjerab Pass.

Photo Credit: Anthony Maw.

[knusprig-titten-hitler]

[artandspirituality]

[nubbsgalore]

built five hundred feet into the permafrost of a norwegian island located some six hundred miles from the north pole (and twice that from oslo), the svalbard global seed vault is the world’s largest and most secure seed bank. 

safe from earthquake and flooding, and designed to last a thousand years, its mission is to serve as a backup for planet’s agriculture in the event of a catastrophe, be it from drought, floods, disease, war (see: syria) and/or the slow moving disaster of climate change.

known as the doomsday vault, it has amassed over 840,000 seed samples since the first deposit, that of rice seeds, was made in 2008 by the late kenyan environmental activist and nobel peace prize winner, wangari maathai. 

since then, all countries, save japan and china (the later of which is believed to have already lost 90 percent of its rice varieties) have entrusted the site with their agricultural heritage, and the collection, as of now, covers about half of the world’s known crop diversity. 

[earthstory]

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[sky-sylph]

Валерий Шейкин

[fuckyeahfluiddynamics]

Sitting at a traffic stop on a windy day, you may have noticed the beam holding the traffic lights shaking steadily up and down. This phenomenon is called vortex-induced vibration. When the wind flows over the beam, it looks something like the flow animation shown above. Airflow follows the shape of the beam until near the backside, where the air separates from the surface and creates a vortex that sloughs off into the beam’s wake. These vortices form asymmetrically on the beam – first on one side, then the other. This creates unequal pressures on either side of the beam, and those pressure differences create a force that moves the beam. Because vortices are being steadily shed off the beam, it will keep moving back and forth as long as the wind is strong enough. (Image credits: traffic light - L. Sennick, source; cylinder - Aphex82/Wikimedia)

[tvneon]

[magictransistor]

Ron Miller. A Clear Day on Titak, 1979.

[autumncottage]

[flyngdream]

James Hollins - Our True Significance | gif by FD

[bryandaugherty]

[guardian]