DNA as Storage for Mankind's Permanent Record

- Graham Templeton

In this era of cloud storage and ever-recoverable user accounts, the idea of data just “disappearing” can seem downright odd. The EU has had to pass Right to be Forgotten legislation just to require companies to work to make it possible for data to go away. Yet given the sheer volume of data being generated and made available on the Internet these days, can that trend possibly persist?

Tweets already pass out of easy access through search in just a few weeks’ time. The Internet is beginning to buckle under the weight of user-generated video. Can digital storage media progress fast enough to keep up with mankind’s ability to generate ones and zeroes?

Perhaps it doesn’t have to. In DNA, evolution has come up with a highly specialized form of storage: physically compact and unusually durable. DNA is nature’s hard drive, and although it’s certainly not perfect, it also has some cool features that beat even the most advanced digital technology. Recent advances could take DNA’s abilities in data storage from theory to practice, bringing molecular memory into the mosaic of technologies that let mankind store knowledge outside the brain.

THE DATA “CRISIS”

At the end of the day, it’s a good problem to have: From the Internet to genomic sequencing, too many people want to use this new world’s rich, innovative features. It’s also a potentially debilitating problem that reduces user interest in the Internet, and puts the integrity of potentially important data at risk. If we have so much data to store and we can’t afford multiple redundant backups, then eventually power surges and hardware failures will lead to knowledge that fundamentally disappears.