Svalbard

Do you want to see the total solar eclipse that will leave Svalbard in the dark on March 20, 2015?

During the morning of March 20, 2015, a total solar eclipse will be visible from the Faroe Islands, located northwest of Scotland, and the Svalbard Islands, located east of Greenland.

The Global Seed Vault opened near the North Pole on 26 February, and an Internet project aimed at promoting biodiversity went on line. The so-called "doomsday" vault is in the remote Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard and is designed to protect millions of seeds from climate change and other disasters. The Encyclopedia of Life web site is just a click away and is meant as a source of information about all living things.

Svalbard can hold more than four million different seed samples. Each sample contains five hundred seeds. The seeds are backups, or copies, of the varieties stored by seed banks around the world.

Last year, Seed Savers Exchange donated two hundred seventy-one heirloom seed varieties to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, far above Norway. The vault opened in February of two thousand eight. Since then, the exchange has stored one thousand six hundred sixty open-pollinated heirloom seed varieties in the storage center.