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Science 13 October 2006:
Vol. 314. no. 5797, p. 231
DOI: 10.1126/science.314.5797.231b
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Heavy rains and winds gusting up to 140 km/h severely damaged greenhouses of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Los Baños, Philippines, as Typhoon Xangsane cut a swath of destruction across Southeast Asia late last month. Water flooded the homes of several staff members, causing more than $1 million in uninsured losses.

Figure 1
CREDIT: SOURCE: IRRI
But IRRI's R&D should emerge unscathed. "We were very lucky," says spokesperson Duncan Macintosh. Although primary power was cut, a triple backup system of power generators maintained temperatures in IRRI's prize gene bank, home to most of the world's rice varieties. And the typhoon highlighted the virtues of an indigenous crop. While a maize test plot was "utterly destroyed," says Macintosh, the rice "just bounced back."




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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)