British scientists have made significant progress by backing up the entire human genome in a so-called “5D storage crystal”.
The purpose of this invention is to save humanity from extinction in the future.
English researchers
The crystal was developed by a team at the Optoelectronics Research Center at the University of Southampton. It can store not only human genetic information but also genetic data of endangered animal and plant species. With a storage capacity of up to 360 terabytes, the crystal can preserve information for billions of years and withstand extreme conditions such as frost, fire, strong shocks, cosmic rays and temperatures of 1000 degrees Celsius.
To store it, the researchers used ultra-fast lasers that imprinted genetic data into tiny cavities just 20 nanometers across (a nanometer is one billionth of a meter). The storage is called “5D” because it encodes information in five dimensions: height, length, width, orientation and position.
Relationship with humanity today
Scientists also had to consider the question of who or what would access this stored information in the distant future. It may be a highly advanced intelligence or civilization in the future that has nothing to do with present-day humanity.
“The 5D storage crystal opens up the possibility for other researchers to create a permanent archive of genetic information from which complex organisms such as plants and animals can be retrieved,” says study leader Peter Kazansky, professor of optoelectronics.
