Harnessing such storage capabilities for the next generation of digital data storage has been the subject of studies for years, and now a team made up of researchers from Microsoft and the University of Washington has broken a new record, managing to store and retrieve 200 MB of data on strands of DNA.

We're getting better at shrinking the physical size of data storage devices while simultaneously increasing the stoarge capacity, with hundreds of gigabytes of data squeezing onto devices that fit in the palm of a hand. But far more data is produced each year than our current technology will be able to keep up with as the world's total data heads towards an estimated 44 trillion GB by 2020.

Unfortunately, even the best of our current range of devices are only relatively short-term solutions to the problem. Hard drives, and optical storage such as DVDs and Blu-Ray discs, are vulnerable to damage and degradation, with a life expectancy of a few decades at best.