DNA Data Could Last A Century

When did you last wash your hands?  Funnily enough, at some point in the future you might just have rinsed away your family photos.  Researchers in Japan have figured out a way to slot specially-constructed DNA into the genome DNA of a bacterium; while each individual cell is relatively short-lived, the genome is passed down from generation to generation and thus the information encoded is preserved as long as the bacteria colony is.

In fact, the researchers are claiming that longevity measured in terms of hundreds or thousands of years could be expected. 

Institute of Advanced Biosciences, Keio University [via Pclaunches]