We need a new long-term storage strategy, and if we don’t find one, we won’t be able to enjoy the future promises that lie ahead. If we are going to store everyone’s DNA, every global transaction and all the data of all the objects connected to the Internet of Things, and all the data from NASA, the particle physics experiments and all the information created by more than 7 One billion people on the planet every day are going to need a better way. Okay, let’s talk, shall we?

What if we could store data using a quantum physics strategy, encoding magnetic tape, but on tape as opposed to the old IBM mainframe tape, a new type of near-invincible tape that could last 1000 years at room temperature? Yes really.

What if we borrow an idea from that Russian scientist who uses tape to capture one atom thick carbon atoms to make graphene? Then encode the grapheme and save it to your tape, or something like that. If we covered it with sulfur atoms on the other side of a very thin porous tap, we would store the data even if the tape were to dissolve in the future, because it could contain the imperfections of the graphene or the inadvertent folds of the squared grapheme.

What if we could store information in strands of DNA?

DNA could be an even better option, since we can work with four components, Letters. How about tiny bits of DNA encoded and then encapsulated in carbon nanotubes? It can store a large amount of information in DNA, including dual codes in DNA, as biotech scientists have recently discovered, codes within codes.

How about adding dimensions?

How about storing and computing information over time? How about taking a Rydberg atom and playing with the spins of electrons and chasing information through the spin vortex? Reading through time, on another path on the vortex walls or within the walls for multidimensional computing? All you have to do is be able to manipulate it precisely and read it on the go.

Going back to the concept of DNA, consider this:

You could take the DNA from a dinosaur egg that grows 50 times faster than a chicken egg and use a benign virus that would replicate incredibly fast and calculate its RNA, once the calculations are complete, freeze it. We can read the DNA of dinosaur eggs now, what 450 million years of storage? See that point. I just think we have to think outside the box.

It’s not that I’m not against IBM tape storage – many corporations have data on tape at the Salt Mines, Iron Mountain facility. But now we can store better, and once in a salt mine, you don’t have to worry about EMP, for example. Dig it, bury it, then it’s just a matter of how much data you can store on the smallest known device.

If we wanted to store all the data of life on Earth, we could even send that data in light waves and one day duplicate life on Earth by sending the instructions elsewhere, such as a seed, a zip file, or a program (style algorithmic). Find a host planet with the right necessities for life, submit the plan, bit by bit, as it evolves. Terraforming + life + DNA at the species level + information about everything. A slower process than the Star Trek transporter but within our current technology roughly 10-15 years of research from now? Think about it.