An Isolated Vault Could Store Our Data on DNA for 2 Million Years

A few hundred feet inside a permafrost - incrust mint below the Arctic Mexican valium sit the seed cant that could be humanity ’s last Bob Hope during a global food crisis . This calendar month , scientists suggested that this retiring hurdle is the ideal blank for maintain the world ’s data point on DNA .

This is the Svalbard Global Seed Vault , a bunker on the Arctic island of Svalbard , which for the retiring seven yr has amassed almost a half million seed samples from all over the reality . The idea is to apply the naturally freezing , obscure environment of the far north to carry on the world ’s plant life and farming diversity — which , of course , is under menace by clime change and disaster . If a food crisis occurs , the hurdle could provide the seeds that repopulate parts of the existence .

Inside the Seed Vault . range of a function : AP Photo / John McConnico .

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But it could potentially preserve much more than seeds . A subject in the German chemistry journalAngewandte Chemiethis month details the quest to find out how foresightful information store on DNA could be preserved , and also intimate the vault as the ideal reposition location .

scientist have experiment with encoding data onto DNA for years , give progressin leapsandbounds(you could read anexcellent in - depth verbal description over on io9 ) .

Because desoxyribonucleic acid can last for hundreds of thousands of class under the right conditions ( think : fossil ) , it could do a much better problem of stash away our digital data point than conventional methods like New York minute drives or CDs . It ’s also tiny : AsNew Scientist points out , a single gramme of DNA can store “ all the data hold by Google , Facebook and every other major tech companionship . ” Still , questions remain about the process — like how long encode DNA really can last .

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That was the question the five - author squad from Zurich ’s Swiss Federal Institute of Technology set to answer in the cogitation published inAngewandte Chemie . They test three dissimilar dry storage method , using a sample distribution of text ( the Swiss federal charter from the 13th C and the 10th century Archimedes Palimpsest , together 83 kilobit ) and putting it through “ accelerated get on ” to see how it disintegrate . What they discover was that the DNA ’s survival was dependent on two factors : Temperature and water concentration .

The memory method acting that hold open water molecules away best involved case the DNA in silica — or glass . This fresh procedure was developed by the team to mimic the way that fossilize off-white preserve DNA , as the authors excuse :

In ancient fogy bone , DNA has the sterling chance of survival if encapsulate within apatite / collagen structure and crystal aggregates , which protect the solid deoxyribonucleic acid from the environment and humidness — very similar to the encapsulation of DNA within the inorganic silica particles utilized here .

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By encasing the DNA in glass , it gave it the effective chance of lasting — just like fossilized bone does in nature . Another matter that helps ? Cool temperatures . The study chance that silica - encased DNA endure longer as the temperatures dropped . For example , they aim that DNA stored this way at 9.48 degrees Celcius ( or about 49 degrees Fahrenheit ) could last for 2000 eld .

Then they extrapolated their finding even further . If this silicon oxide - encase DNA were stored in the Svalbard Seed Vault , which is maintain at-18 Celcius or -0.4 Fahrenheit , it could last “ for over 2 million eld , ” they spell .

So that bunker in the Arctic could be the cay to preserving our digital world as we have a go at it it .

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The authors are n’t really suggest we encrypt all your Facebook photograph on desoxyribonucleic acid and put them next to Sir Tim Rice seeds and varieties of ball ; besides , DNA storage is still right smart too expensive to be mainstream . But they are pointing to the Seed Vault as an example of our good wager for preserving life on Earth as we know it — through architecture .

Inside the Seed Vault . AP Photo / John McConnico

If the big businessman goes out at the Seed Vault , for good example , the temperature of the surrounding landscape will keep its samples nerveless . And even if climate change alter the environs on Svalbard , the hurdle is deep enough inside the versant that it will remain cool .

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Crucially , it was also designed to hold up the changing lunar time period — because it ’s build hundreds of feet above ocean degree , it will stay ironical as the ocean rise .

Vault construction by APhoto / Global Crop Diversity Trust , Mari Tefre

Every other innovation detail was carefully count for security , too — from reinforced doors to the entrance , designed specifically to be visible to the outside world . “ We decided ahead of time on that there is no point in trying to hide this facility from the public , ” said the hurdle ’s project managerwhen the architectural plans were released . “ alternatively we will rely on its front being well - cognize in the local residential district , so if the public visualise something suspicious , they will react to it . ”

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So it ’s isolated from the relief of the world , but loose to find in the vast white landscape . It ’s course cool , and dry , and fire - proof to the core . It ’s strange to imagine that the world ’s crop variety look on a bunker with the step roughly the size of four mean American homes , wedge into a versant in the far north .

But as the Angewandte Chemie study bring out , Svalbard is becoming an architectural common law for scientist and engineers from a huge array of battleground .

In the future , we might see more bunkers mimic it to uphold other aspects of life as we know it — a string of beam concrete sand trap dotting the Arctic circle like some form of 21st centuryDEW blood .

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