Do the Powers That Be know something we don't? Everywhere you look, defenses are being shored up against the destruction of all mankind. Some of these are more than welcome. New York is finally paying attention to ports security, as the Times notes today, by test-driving some bomb-detection technology in Staten Island. Radiation detectors are to be installed in bridges and tunnels—not all of them, but it's a good start.
Meanwhile, the Norwegians are taking more drastic measures, constructing a "doomsday vault" (I'm not making this up) that will contain seeds from all the crops on earth. It's more than a little alarming to think about the kind of catastrophe that would necessitate this, but it's fun to imagine the look on the faces of our descendents when they discover it and decide—as I cannot but doubt they will—that it was put there by aliens.
The Svalbard International Seed Vault will be built into a mountainside on a remote island near the North Pole.
The vault aims to safeguard the world's agriculture from future catastrophes, such as nuclear war, asteroid strikes and climate change.
Construction begins in March, and the seed bank is scheduled to open in 2008.
The Norwegian government is paying the $5m (£2.5m) construction costs of the vault, which will have enough space to house three million seed samples.
The collection and maintenance of the collection is being organised by the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which has responsibility of ensuring the "conservation of crop diversity in perpetuity".