In 2020, Ann Druyan’s TV Series Cosmos: Possible Worlds did an episode on Nikolai Vavilov, the Soviet biologist who started the world’s first seed bank but ran afoul of the dictator Josef Stalin and was sentenced to the gulag. As Wikipedia describes the episode, “Vavilov traveled 5 continents assembling a treasury of the worlds seeds. He dreamed that science could be the means to end hunger. His refusal to tell a scientific lie cost him his life. The heroism of his colleagues and its direct impact on your life is one of the most stirring stories in the history of science.” Druyan notes the irony that this man who did more than anyone else in history to end world hunger perished by being allowed to starve to death.
In 2020, Ann Druyan’s TV Series Cosmos: Possible Worlds did an episode on Nikolai Vavilov, the Soviet biologist who started the world’s first seed bank but ran afoul of the dictator Josef Stalin and was sentenced to the gulag. As Wikipedia describes the episode, “Vavilov traveled 5 continents assembling a treasury of the worlds seeds. He dreamed that science could be the means to end hunger. His refusal to tell a scientific lie cost him his life. The heroism of his colleagues and its direct impact on your life is one of the most stirring stories in the history of science.” Druyan notes the irony that this man who did more than anyone else in history to end world hunger perished by being allowed to starve to death.