Researchers at the EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute
(EMBL-EBI) have created a way to store data in the form of DNA – a material
that lasts for tens of thousands of years. The new method, published in the
journal Nature, makes it possible to store at least 100 million hours of
high-definition video in about a cup of DNA.
There is a lot of digital information in the world – about
three zettabytes’ worth (that’s 3000 billion billion bytes) – and the constant
influx of new digital content poses a real challenge for archivists. Hard disks
are expensive and require a constant supply of electricity, while even the best
‘no-power’ archiving materials such as magnetic tape degrade within a decade.
This is a growing problem in the life sciences, where massive volumes of data –
including DNA sequences – make up the fabric of the scientific record.