Collecting, storing and preserving

We humans like to preserve everything, whether we’ve collected or created it. Be it sourdough starters, books or blood samples. We want to preserve objects, memories and even microorganisms. Karl de Smedt is the only sourdough librarian in the world. In St. Vith, Belgium, he keeps 144 sourdough starters from all over the globe, some of which are over 100 years old. Through his collection, he preserves the unique wild yeasts and microorganisms that create each sourdough. The German National Library in Leipzig and Frankfurt preserves copies of all books, records and media published in or about Germany since 1913. There are 34 million physical media on the shelves. Digitization can solve the space problem, but also has its pitfalls. For example: data has to be constantly copied, as hard disks can become unusable. Prof. Robert Grass from ETH Zurich is developing a particularly promising storage medium: DNA storage. It is extremely powerful, can be stored for over 1,000 years and can always be read. Data is converted into the DNA code and stored as artificial DNA. BioBank Dresden stores tumor samples, blood, urine and cerebrospinal fluid for research purposes. Evidence from criminal offenses is stored in the evidence room of the public prosecutor's office in Frankfurt am Main. This allows crimes to be re-analyzed using modern techniques and solved decades later.