Scientists exploring the archiving potential of DNA conducted a test in which error-free data was downloaded after the equivalent of 2000 years.
The next challenge is to find a way of searching for information encoded in strands of DNA floating in a drop of liquid.
Lead researcher Dr Robert Grass said DNA had a “language” not unlike the binary code in computers. While a hard drive uses zeros and ones to represent data, the DNA code is written in sequences of four chemical nucleotides.
