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"Science fiction writers, I am sorry to say, really do not know anything. We can't talk about science, because our knowledge of it is limited and unofficial, and usually our fiction is dreadful."
- Philip K. Dick

Life Bank  
  A storage facility with the genetic material that was produced by Earth's ecosystem.  

Can we take some of the Earth's biosphere with us if we are forced to leave our planet?

There had been a time when wheat, soybeans, potatoes, corn and rice had been the major foods of the human race. Now there was no one alive who had ever seen them.

But they existed in the Life Bank, as did virtually every plant and animal that existed on Old Earth.

From The Ophiuchi Hotline, by John Varley.
Published by Quantum Science Fiction in 1977
Additional resources -

Compare to the genetic ark from Earth, a 1990 novel by David Brin.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from The Ophiuchi Hotline
  More Ideas and Technology by John Varley
  Tech news articles related to The Ophiuchi Hotline
  Tech news articles related to works by John Varley

Life Bank-related news articles:
  - Doomsday Vault Design Now Final

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