Biodiversity
Who Checks on the Seeds?
A vault in the hills holds 400,000 samples meant to outlast us. Keeping them alive takes a small crew, a freezer alarm and a very long to-do list.
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Science editor
Ilona Varga
Ilona Varga is the magazine’s science editor and writes about oceans, seeds, and experiments that outlast the people who start them. She spent 12 years as a marine biologist at the Westmere Coastal Station, counting fish larvae in plankton nets, before deciding she preferred describing patience to practicing it. Her book The Patient Sciences profiles eight studies older than their lead investigators. She lives in Westmere, swims off the north slipway in every month of the year, and keeps a sealed jar of runner-bean seeds on her desk.
4 pieces by Ilona
Oceans
What a Healthy Reef Sounds Like
Snapping shrimp, grunting fish and the crackle of life. Scientists are learning to restore reefs by playing them back their own noise.
Measurement
The Volunteers Who Have Measured One Harbour’s Tide Since 1890
A brass gauge, a shed and a rota of retired sailors. Their unbroken record now shows the sea rising in a way no model could have told them.
Evolution
The Lab That Has Grown the Same Bacteria Since 1988
Every day for nearly forty years, someone has moved a drop of culture into a fresh flask. The experiment’s real subject may be patience.