All the world's data could be held in less than half a cup of DNA, and it would store for thousands of years. While man concretes over acres of green sites for building new datacenters, Mother Nature keeps showing us a different, far more effective way.
34 billion miles long
Total Health is again grateful to Dr Doug Corrigan who is a Biochemist & Molecular Biologist, Physicist, Award Winning Global Super Solver, Materials Scientist, Innovator, Space Enthusiast and Author of Did God Reveal His Identity in the Physics of Light? - for clarifying and describing some of the scientific realities. He says, "If all of the DNA in our body was lined up, it would form a line that is 34 billion miles long. All of that DNA has to be compacted and organised into the 30 trillion cells that make up our body".
This kinda puts man's efforts at information data storage into perspective.
Can man compete with Mother Nature?
There is grand phrase in biology that says 'phylogeny repeats ontology', what this means is that the way that larger ancestral groups of related organisms evolve follows the same way in which individual organisms develop. For example, a foetus developing in the womb goes through a series of phases resembling increasingly complex organisms - from worms, to newts to mammals.
There would also seem to be an obvious similarity between natural information storage (DNA) and siloes for electronic bytes. However, the two methods are incomparable when it comes to data storage efficiency. Mother Nature spanks mankind.
As Dr Corrigan explains, we are already struggling to house all the data, we currently produce in 2025, whereas only 10 to 100 grams of DNA is enough to store all of Google, Facebook and all other data currently on the planet.
Biology kinda puts things in perspective
Dr Corrigan explains the following via X:
Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid (DNA) is the densest information storage molecule in the World.
DNA is the perfect information storage molecule.
Even though DNA is biological, it far exceeds (by several orders of magnitude) the information storage density of any man made storage medium, such as magnetic tapes, DVDs, or silicon microchips. One gram of DNA is theoretically capable of holding 455 exabytes of data, which is the equivalent of 455 billion gigabytes.
10 to 100 grams is more than enough space to store all of Google, Facebook and all other data currently on the planet. 10 to 100 grams = all of the world’s data. Think about that for a second. Where digital data is binary (based on 2 letters), the data stored in DNA is quaternary (based on 4 letters).
DNA can be written to, copied, and read. Under the right conditions, DNA is amazingly stable. The data stored in DNA can last thousands of years with no degradation. Compare that to current storage technologies which are measured in a few decades.
In a separate post Dr Corrigan goes on to explain:
If all of the DNA in our body was lined up, it would form a line that is 34 billion miles long. All of that DNA has to be compacted and organized into the 30 trillion cells that make up our body. Each one of our cells contains approximately 6 feet of DNA that is divided among 23 different pairs of chromosomes.
All of this DNA is carefully wrapped inside the cell nucleus into smaller microstructures, medium-sized mesostructures, and larger sized macro structures to keep the DNA untangled and organized. During cell division, the chromosomes must condense into tightly-shaped cylinders (top image). The DNA in each chromosome is completely copied into a second chromosome, which forms sister chromatids that are attached together at a central centromere (bottom image). These sister chromatids are then pulled apart during cell division to result in a full set of chromosomes in each of the two daughter cells.
Condensed DNA
To prevent the chromosomes from becoming entangled during this entire process, they must be condensed, compartmentalized, and segregated. Two proteins, Condensin I and Condensin II are responsible for assisting with chromosome organization and structuring during this condensation process. Condensin proteins help organize DNA into smaller loops and larger loops. These loops are wrapped helically into larger superstructures that eventually form the condensed DNA. You can visualize this in the molecular models below. Without these two proteins, and many others that assist in this process, cells would fail to divide properly.
Data storage capacity
Happy 5 zettabytes of new data a year
We are quickly reaching the limit of our data storage capacity on the planet compared to how much data society is generating. Currently, humans generate about 5 zettabytes of new data in a year. It’s estimated that our current trajectory, the planet will generate 160 zettabytes of data by 2025. 1 zettabyte is 1,000 exabytes. Doing the math, we can store all 160 zettabytes with 350 grams of DNA- less than 1 pound. And it will last thousands of years.
