Seeds Stored for a Harvest They Would Never See

In 1941, as German forces encircled Leningrad, the scientists at the Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry faced an unthinkable test. Inside their walls sat one of the world's largest seed banks — tens of thousands of packets of rice, wheat, corn, and potatoes, painstakingly collected from every continent. Outside, nine hundred days of siege began. Starvation crept through the city like a shadow.…