On Sept. 19, 2024, scientists from the University of Southampton’s Optoelectronics Research Centre announced they had stored the full human genome on a 5D memory crystal – a revolutionary data storage format that can survive for billions of years.

The team at Southampton, led by Professor Peter Kazansky , used ultra-fast lasers to precisely inscribe data into nanostructured voids orientated within silica – with feature sizes as small as 20 nanometres. For the approximately three billion letters in the genome, each letter was sequenced 150 times to make sure it was in that position. The deep-read sequencing work was done in partnership with Helixwork Technologies.

The team hope that the crystal could provide a blueprint to bring humanity back from extinction thousands, millions or even billions of years into the future, should science allow. The crystal is stored in the Memory of Mankind archive – a special time capsule within a salt cave in Hallstatt, Austria.