Swiss scientists have come up with a new way to store important information. They've found that if DNA is kept in glass and chilled, it can preserve the data in it for millions of years.

The double helix design of DNA makes it incredibly resilient in the face of physical and chemical damage. This makes DNA an ideal method for long-term data storage but up until now scientists and researchers have had no idea how to encode data into an organic, genetic database.

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But now, researchers said just one gram of DNA can hold an astounding 455 exabytes of data. With each exabyte equivalent to one billion gigabytes - the equivalent of more than thirty-one million 32 GB SD cards - the storage capacity of even one exabyte is astronomical, let alone 455 of them.

If DNA is chilled and fossilized it can last for millions of years. Researchers said that glass pods are meant to be stored at around 50 degrees Fahrenheit and accurate data from them can still be extracted up to 2,000 years later if the pods are kept at 0 degrees.

Using the innate coding language of DNA, scientists create data-encoded DNA. DNA consists of four chemicals: A, C, G and T.

DNA as ancient as 700,000 years old has been successfully extracted and sequenced from horse fossils, though the conditions for preservation have to be in perfect balance for such longevity. Scientists say the aim of preserving data for millions of years has them looking for new ways to preserve DNA for posterity.

DNA data storage will one day have an effect on information passed from one generation to the next. Researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ) have addressed many problems associated with using DNA as data storage.

Reinhard Heckel from ETH Zurich's Communication Technology Laboratory said data stored for a million years could have some errors. To respond to such issues, researchers developed an error correction scheme based on the Reed-Solomon Codes. Similar codes are used for the transmission of information over great distances.

TagsDNA, genetic database, genes, genetic storage