What if your favorite movie could be stored inside a strand of DNA? It sounds like science fiction, but researchers have already encoded images, books, computer files, and even short videos into synthetic DNA molecules. In fact, DNA may be the most dense and durable storage medium ever discovered.

In this episode, we explore the fascinating science of DNA data storage and how biological molecules can become the hard drives of the future. We dive into genetics, molecular biology, computer science, information theory, synthetic biology, data encoding, biotechnology, and nanotechnology. We examine how digital information made of 1s and 0s can be converted into the four DNA bases—A, T, C, and G—and how scientists can later read that information back with remarkable accuracy.

We also explore why DNA can store vastly more information than m ...