If civilization as we know it were to collapse tomorrow, what would remain of our collective knowledge?
The vast troves of data stored on hard drives and servers are far more fragile than we like to believe.
Magnetic tapes degrade, CDs scratch, and even the best digital storage solutions have a limited lifespan. In a few hundred years, nearly all of our digital footprint could be lost.
But what if we could store all of human knowledge in a medium that could last over a million years?
Scientists have developed a revolutionary DNA-based time capsule, a technology that could preserve humanity’s most important information far beyond the capabilities of current digital storage.
The implications of this breakthrough are nothing short of astonishing.
Nature’s Hard Drive
The idea of storing data in DNA isn’t new.
Researchers have long known that DNA is an incredibly dense and efficient storage medium.
Just one gram of DNA can hold 455 exabytes of data—the equivalent of all the data stored by Google, Facebook, and every other major tech company combined.
The reason DNA is so powerful is that it already serves as the blueprint for all life on Earth.
Scientists can encode information using the four DNA base pairs: A (adenine) and C (cytosine) as binary ‘0’, and T (thymine) and G (guanine) as binary ‘1’. In theory, this allows any type of digital information—books, photos, music, even entire databases—to be stored in a microscopic biological format.
However, the biggest question has always been longevity. How long could data encoded in DNA actually last?
Creating a Fossilized DNA Hard Drive
To answer this, researchers from ETH Zürich, led by Robert Grass, sought to mimic the process that allows genetic material to survive for hundreds of thousands of years in fossils.
In 2013, scientists sequenced DNA from 700,000-year-old horse bones, proving that, under the right conditions, DNA could remain intact for incredible lengths of time.
Inspired by this, Grass and his team encoded two historical texts—Switzerland’s Federal Charter of 1291 and The Methods of Mechanical Theorems by Archimedes—into a DNA strand.
They then encapsulated the DNA within tiny glass spheres just 150 nanometers in diameter.
This method was designed to protect the genetic material from environmental degradation, much like how fossils preserve ancient DNA.
To test durability, the researchers subjected their DNA time capsules to extreme temperatures—between 60 and 70 degrees Celsius—which simulates the natural decay of hundreds of years in just a few weeks.
The Astonishing Results
The results were groundbreaking.
Despite the accelerated aging process, the DNA inside the glass spheres remained intact.
Using a fluoride solution, the team was able to extract and perfectly reconstruct the stored data—proving that their encapsulation method could allow DNA-encoded information to survive for millennia.
Extrapolating from their findings, the researchers estimate that, under proper conditions—such as storage at -18°C in a facility like the Svalbard Global Seed Vault—DNA data could remain readable for over a million years.
Even in less ideal environments, such as 10°C (the average temperature of central Europe), the data could still last around 2,000 years.
Is This Really Practical?
At this point, you might be thinking: This sounds amazing, but is it actually feasible? After all, data storage on DNA is still prohibitively expensive.
In this study alone, encoding just 83 kilobytes of data cost approximately $1,500. That’s a far cry from the affordability of a standard hard drive.
Yet, this is where history teaches us a crucial lesson.
The first computers were enormously expensive and inefficient, yet today we carry more computing power in our pockets than NASA had during the Moon landing.
Similarly, DNA storage costs are expected to plummet as technology advances.
Already, researchers have stored entire books on DNA, and even the band OK Go encoded one of their albums into genetic information.
These early experiments signal that DNA storage isn’t just a theoretical concept—it’s a technology in its infancy.
Readability
Another major hurdle is error correction. DNA sequences are prone to mutations and sequencing errors, which could distort the stored data over time.
But Grass’s team developed a clever workaround by embedding Reed-Solomon Codes—a widely used error-correction system—into the DNA itself.
This ensures that even if some data is lost or degraded, the information can still be fully reconstructed.
The team demonstrated this by recovering their encoded texts even after subjecting the DNA to extreme, degrading conditions for an entire month.
What Would We Choose to Preserve?
If DNA storage becomes viable on a large scale, what should we preserve for future civilizations?
Grass suggests encoding UNESCO’s Memory of the World Programme—a collection of historically significant texts and artifacts.
He also points to Wikipedia, stating that its entries offer a surprisingly comprehensive overview of what our society values, knows, and debates.
Imagine if, millions of years from now, a future civilization—or even an alien species—discovered a DNA archive containing everything we know about science, art, and culture.
It would be the ultimate time capsule, ensuring that even if humanity disappears, our knowledge lives on.
The Future of Data Storage Is Biological
The implications of this technology stretch far beyond archiving history.
DNA data storage could revolutionize space exploration, allowing for lightweight, ultra-dense data storage on interstellar missions.
It could also serve as an indestructible backup for civilization, safeguarding critical knowledge in case of a global catastrophe.
We stand at the threshold of a new era in information preservation. While the technology is still evolving, one thing is certain—DNA, the very foundation of life, may also hold the key to humanity’s immortality in the digital age.
Our species may not last forever, but our knowledge just might.
Source: New Scientist
