A 142-Year-Old Science Seed Caper

Short Wave

NPR

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🗓️ 26 April 2021

⏱️ 12 minutes

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Summary

On April 15, at four o'clock in the morning, a small group of scientists found their way to a secret location. A light wintry mix of rain and snow was falling. The lousy weather was a relief because it meant even less of a chance that someone might randomly pass by.

Today on the show, NPR science correspondent Nell Greenfieldboyce unearths why a new generation of scientists is digging up seeds under the cover of night buried 142 years ago.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:04.8	Hey, everybody.
0:07.0	Emily Quang here with NPR Science Correspondent Nell Greenfield Boys.
0:11.0	How do you know?
0:12.0	Hey, Emily.
0:13.0	Hey, so you promised you would tell me the story of a secret science mission done under
0:18.7	the cover of Darkness.
0:20.4	Indeed, indeed.
0:21.4	So, this happened earlier this month.
0:23.3	A small group of scientists in Michigan rendezvoused at 4 a.m.
0:28.1	So, you know, it was dark, cold.
0:31.0	They told me it was raining or kind of snowing.
0:33.8	And they'd brought shovels plus an old mat to essentially dig for a kind of very treasure.
0:39.9	You know where we're headed?
0:41.9	Yep.
0:42.9	Okay, good.
0:44.4	This sounds unmistakably like a capper.
0:46.9	It is.
0:47.9	It is a capper.
0:48.9	One of the folks who went on this little expedition, David Lowry, told me it wasn't your typical
0:52.2	research project.
0:53.6	Usually, you're counting 1,064 insects.
	...

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