Whether some future entity will want to bring humanity back after its eventual extinction is now a theoretical if unlikely option, thanks to boffins at the University of Southampton in the UK.
Breakthrough: Human Genome Preserved in 5D Memory Crystal!
Researchers led by optoelectronics professor Peter Kazansky have used an ultrafast laser to write the human genome into a 5D memory crystal, a storage medium designed to last for billions of years.
Earth's deoxygenation is expected sooner than that, in about a billion years, and the Sun is expected to swallow our planet in about 7.6 billion years.
But it's at least comforting to know that human genomic data will be protected from bit rot, the degradation of data that has already devoured early digital artifacts. Our genetic blueprint will theoretically be recyclable for a very long time if not forever, as suggested in a 2016 research paper Kazansky co-authored.
