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Do you worry about how future Earthlings will learn about twenty-first century life in a post-apocalypse world? If you do, get a little fresh air. But also, fear not! Scientists can now store all of the data in the world into something no bigger than a car.

Most of us know that DNA, the double helix structure found in the nucleus of cells, stores the instruction manual for our bodies. Your DNA is at fault for your big feet, and you have it to thank for your sparkly blue eyes. In this microscopic piece of life, all of our genetic material is contained. Because of its vast capabilities, scientists decided to try using DNA for storage that completely transcends biology.

It all started, as most good ideas do, over a beer. Nick Goldman and Ewan Birney from the Bioinformatics Institute in the UK were frustrated with how little information their computers could hold when it occurred to them: DNA holds more information than any storage device we could create. They started sketching on a napkin, and soon they had a plan.

Goldman and Birney took the adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine inside the DNA — the rungs on the ladder of the double helix — and assigned codes to them. These codes are similar to the ones and zeroes of binary, which is basically computer language. Then, they took a photograph of their building and translated it into this same code before sending it off to a facility in Santa Clara, California, to have it sequenced. The facility sent them back a strand of DNA with the new code, and when Goldman and Birney translated it, they could put the picture back together with 100 per cent accuracy.

Since then, the scientists have been able to translate songs, speeches and Shakespeare sonnets into DNA. One gram of DNA holds all of the information on Facebook, Google and every major tech company, with room left over. More impressive still: all of the world’s information — every single one of our books, movies, historical documents, data, music, etc — could be translated to DNA and packed into the back of a van.

As long as we have a cool, dry climate to store the DNA, like a cave, it will last for thousands of years. So after a meteor collides with the Earth, or the sea level rises above the tree line, the next intelligent life to inhabit our planet will know everything about us. They will know the poems we study, the houses we lived in, maybe even your Facebook profile picture. That’s science, bitches.