For all the petabytes of data we have, the truth is most of what we’ve got tweeted, Instagrammed, and podcasted is fleeting. Magnetic memory degrades in a relative eyeblink, and even our most advanced storage will quickly become corrupt. DNA storage, though, has the potential to last for eons, so Microsoft, of course, decided to grant this immortality to a goofy web video.
Specifically, Microsoft encoded OK GO’s This Too Shall Pass, a video following a Rube Goldberg machine though a massive warehouse, using synthetic DNA. DNA data storage turns binary code into the fundamental building blocks of life to encode data, and in theory, at least, as long as it’s properly protected, even a tiny bit of synthetic DNA could keep a staggering amount of information stored for thousands of years.
However, it’s still a tricky matter to make it work, so Microsoft has been experimenting alongside the University of Washington to refine the technique. The video wasn’t chosen entirely out of puckishness; the team needed a large file to see if they could search for specific nucleotide sequences in the data, which it turns out they can. There are still roadblocks to DNA storage becoming commonplace; it’s expensive to encode, hard to decode and nearly impossible to rewrite. But if disaster strikes tomorrow and aliens stumble across what little remains of our culture centuries from now, at least they’ll understand how so many of us spent our time.
(via The Verge)