These Scientists Want To Store The History Of Humanity On DNA Molecules And Send Them To The Moon

[JonLP24]

The latest in preserving human civilization was announced on Thursday: an encyclopedia of images and data stored in DNA and shipped to the moon in 2020.

One of the alarming discoveries of the modern era is that data storage technologies, from VCR tapes to floppy disks, are becoming obsolete at an increasing clip. As the cost of genetic sequencing has decreased in the last two decades, some researchers have touted the DNA found inside living cells as the data storage material of the future.

“DNA is very durable, and we want data storage that will last on the scale of millions of years,” Nova Spivack, venture capitalist and cofounder of the Arch Mission Foundation, told BuzzFeed News.

The foundation, along with the University of Washington, Microsoft, and Twist Bioscience, intend to make a “special collection” of 20 books and more than 10,000 images, in what is billed as the largest ever encoded DNA data archive.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/amphtml/danvergano/dna-encyclopedia-moon?bftwnews=&utm_term=4ldqpgc&__twitter_impression=true

[lordbateman]

1. Sounds like a really stupid idea.

If we destroy ourselves on this planet, it should just be let go.

[2naSalit]

2. I knew it...

It's really all about polluting the rest of the universe with ourselves!

[lapfog_1]

3. The problem isn't the density of the storage

It is only the mechanism by which the data so stored can be understood by someone without the technology to a) find it b) read it and c) interpret it correctly.

We have (well, IBM has) had for at least 20 years now the ability to store data at atomic levels... more recently they announced the ability to create single atom magnets (that can be read as either 1s or 0s)... this is the smallest storage unit possible (without getting into subatomic particles).

However, an alien species or even future generations of humans would need to know that the "credit card" size bit of substrate actually contains something... they would need tunneling electron microscopes to view the arrangement of atom/magnets and finally they would need to know how to interpret the stored binary (or stored pictures of letter and number symbols or whatever).

The same goes for genetic storage as well.

[LakeSuperiorView]

4. The technology of any life form that can make it to our moon is far beyond our's.

I doubt they would have more difficulty in reading it than we have reading, say, clay tablets. I'm excluding, of course, any life forms from earth.

[Duppers]

6. IF by any chance they'd find it, they would be studying

us as we would amoebas.

[Duppers]

5. WTF!!

[cstanleytech]

7. Wouldnt it be more vulnerable though to decay if in space due to radiation which our atmosphere

largely filters out?

[SuprstitionAintthWay]

8. Dna as text

3 or 4 years ago on the Colbert Repor Dr. George Church, a CRISPR developer, brought with him millions of copies of his book Regnesis, encoded, in a little dab of DNA.

He's also working on de-extincting a mammoth or a sabretoorh tiger. Dropped plans for using an Asian elephant as a proxy mom (they're threatened) for the genetically engineered mammoth embryo, and is now looking at building an artificial uterus for it... which I can't fathom at all.

When we were both 17 he lived across our freshmen dorm hallway at Duke, and I had a few discussions with him I remember to this day. He was a bundle of ambitious, fascinating ideas even then.