The human genome, stored in an indestructible ‘crystal’ that could bring us back to life after extinction
The crystal will act as a DNA time capsule that could be used to bring humanity back to life after our demise, researchers say.
For the first time, scientists have stored a copy of humanity’s genetic blueprint inside a nearly indestructible ‘5D memory crystal’ – a new data storage format that could keep valuable information safe for billions of years or even potentially until the end of time.
Researchers believe this DNA time capsule could be used to revive our species long after extinction. But not everyone agrees.
The coin-sized crystal, developed by researchers at the University of Southampton in England, is made from a synthetic material that mimics the properties of fused quartz – a glass made from nearly pure silicon, which is one of the most thermally stable materials and chemical ever discovered.
The team introduced it in 2014, and since then it has remained “the most durable data storage material” on the planet, according to Guinness World Records.
Most data storage formats in use today degrade over time. But the researchers predict that these crystals could remain stable at room temperature for 300 quintillion years, longer than most theories predict the Universe will last.
The crystal could resurrect our species
Even at higher temperatures, up to 190 degrees Celsius, the material could remain intact for up to 13.8 billion years, which is about the same age as the Universe today. In any case, the crystal could survive Earth, which will be destroyed by the sun in about 5 billion years.
at temperatures of about 1,000 C or well below freezing. They can also withstand forces of up to 10 tons per square centimeter — roughly the equivalent of the weight of two African elephants — and long exposure to cosmic radiation, meaning they could survive long journeys through space, the researchers wrote in the a statement.
To store information inside the crystals, the researchers use lasers to transcribe data onto millions of 20-nanometer-wide nodes stacked in a five-dimensional array containing “two optical dimensions and three spatial coordinates,” the researchers wrote .
Researchers first achieved this in 2016 when they transcribed copies of famous texts such as the Magna Carta, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the King James Bible onto crystals. The largest crystals can store up to 360 terabytes of data, which is more than 5,000 times more than a regular iPhone.
The entire genome is about 3 billion letters long
In this case, the team wrote using the four letters that represent the nucleotides or bases of DNA: adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G) and thymine (T). The entire genome is about 3 billion letters long, according to the National Human Genome Research Institute.
The crystal will be placed in the Memory of Mankind collection deep in Germany’s abandoned Hallstatt salt mine and “could provide a blueprint for bringing humanity back from extinction thousands, millions or even billions of years into the future,” the researchers wrote.
Currently, it is not possible to resurrect a species based on a single genome alone. However, the team believes that a future advanced civilization that either evolved from humans or originated from an alien world could possess the knowledge and technology to achieve this, they write.
The crystal also includes small visual diagrams of nucleotide structures, the double-helix shape of DNA, and the atomic structure of the elements essential to life, such as carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen. Researchers hope these visual clues will reveal the crystal’s purpose to whoever finds it after we’re gone.
