The complete human genome has been preserved by British scientists on a 5D memory crystal, which they believe could potentially serve as a blueprint for saving humanity from extinction millions if not thousands of years in the future. The Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) team at the University of Southampton stated that the genomes of endangered species of plants and animals can be preserved using the ground-breaking data storage format that has the ability to last for millions or even billions of years.
A university spokesperson clarified that even at high temperatures, 5D memory crystals can retain up to 360 terabytes of data (in the highest size) without losing any information for billions of years, in contrast to existing data storage formats that deteriorate over time. “The crystal is equivalent to fused quartz, one of the most chemically and thermally durable materials on Earth,” he stated. In 2014, it was recognized as the most durable data storage medium and was awarded the Guinness World Record.
He added, “It can withstand the high and low extremes of freezing, fire and temperatures of up to 1,000 Celsius. The crystal can also withstand direct impact force of up to 10 tons per cm2 and is unchanged by long exposure to cosmic radiation.” With feature sizes as small as 20 nanometers, Professor Peter Kazansky who led the Southampton team employed ultra-fast lasers to precisely engrave data onto nano-structured gaps oriented within silica.
“Unlike marking only on the surface of a 2D piece of paper or magnetic tape, this method of encoding uses two optical dimensions and three spatial coordinates to write throughout the material, hence the ‘5D’ in its name,” the spokesman unveiled. Although genetic information alone cannot currently be used to synthetically produce humans, plants, or animals, Professor Peter Kazansky maintained that because the 5D crystal is long-lasting, the knowledge would still be accessible if these advancements were accomplished.
He cited the 2010 team headed by Dr. Craig Venter that produced a synthetic bacterium. “We know from the work of others that genetic material of simple organisms can be synthesised and used in an existing cell to create a viable living specimen in a lab. The 5D memory crystal opens up possibilities for other researchers to build an everlasting repository of genomic information from which complex organisms like plants and animals might be restored should science in the future allow,” he highlighted.
The crystal is kept at the Memory of Mankind repository, which is housed in a salt cave in Hallstatt, Austria and represents a unique time capsule. “When designing the crystal, the team considered if the data held within it might be retrieved by an intelligence (species or machine) which comes after us in the distant future. Indeed, it might be found so far into the future that no frame of reference exists,” the university spokesman informed.
The key illustrates the four bases of DNA (adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine) and their molecular structures. It also shows the universal elements (hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen) and how genes fit into a chromosome, which can then be inserted into a cell. “The visual key inscribed on the crystal gives the finder knowledge of what data is stored inside and how it could be used,” Professor Peter Kazansky revealed. He added, “We don’t know if memory crystal technology will ever follow these plaques in distance travelled but each disc can be expected with a high degree of confidence to exceed their survival time.”
The researchers developed a 5D memory crystal that included the entire human genome in order to test this theory. Each letter in the genome, which consists of about three billion letters, was sequenced 150 times to ensure that it was in that location. Helixwork Technologies was a partner in the deep-read sequencing project.
