Can we preserve knowledge … forever?

Summary of Can we preserve knowledge … forever?

by NPR

49m•April 24, 2026
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Overview of Can we preserve knowledge … forever?

This NPR TED Radio Hour episode explores the urgent question of how humanity can preserve knowledge, culture, and evidence of the world as it exists today before formats, institutions, and even landscapes disappear. Through three case studies—an early LGBTQ video game, the Internet Archive, DNA data storage, and the Earth Archive—the episode argues that saving history is an active, ongoing effort, not a one-time backup.

Main Stories and Examples

Caper in the Castro: preserving queer history through games

  • The episode opens with CM Ralph’s 1989 game Caper in the Castro, described as the first gay video game.
  • Made on an early Macintosh with severe storage limits, the game follows a lesbian detective, Tracker McDyke, searching for a drag queen friend, Tessie LaFemme.
  • CM created it during the AIDS crisis as a “love letter” to the LGBTQ community, reflecting fear, loss, and mutual care.
  • After being rediscovered in 2017 by media scholar Adrienne Shaw, the game was extracted from an obsolete disk and uploaded to the Internet Archive, making it playable again.

The Internet Archive and the fight against digital decay

  • Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive, explains that digital content is incredibly fragile:
    • websites often last only about 100 days
    • older file formats, disks, and media quickly become unreadable
  • The Internet Archive aims to build a “library of everything,” preserving:
    • web pages
    • books
    • music
    • film and TV
    • software
  • Its Wayback Machine snapshots web pages over time and is used by journalists, lawyers, researchers, and the public.
  • The Archive also:
    • fixed 15 million broken Wikipedia links
    • digitized referenced books for easier access
    • offers a Save Page Now tool so users can help preserve pages themselves
  • The episode also notes the legal tension around digitizing and lending e-books:
    • publishers argue it is piracy
    • the Archive argues it is equal access and preservation
  • Since the episode first aired, the Archive has faced further restrictions and pushback from publishers and media companies.

DNA as a future-proof storage medium

  • Molecular biologist Dina Zielinski presents DNA as a possible solution for long-term archival storage.
  • DNA is extraordinarily dense, durable, and energy-efficient compared with conventional storage.
  • The basic process:
    • convert digital data into binary
    • encode bits into DNA letters: A, T, C, G
    • synthesize the DNA
    • later add water and sequence it to recover the data
  • DNA storage is not yet practical for everyday use, but it is promising for cold archival data that should last for centuries or longer.
  • Current barriers:
    • very high cost
    • reliance on specialized lab equipment
  • Still, Zielinski is optimistic that costs will fall and DNA storage will become viable for critical records.

The Earth Archive: preserving landscapes before they change

  • Archaeologist Chris Fisher shifts the idea of archiving from digital files to the physical world.
  • Using LiDAR, he discovered and mapped ancient sites such as:
    • Angamuco in Mexico
    • the City of the Jaguar in Honduras
  • These scans captured sites before later damage from logging, development, and climate impacts.
  • Fisher founded the Earth Archive, a project to LiDAR-scan the planet and create a permanent record of:
    • terrain
    • forests
    • hydrology
    • settlements
    • archaeological sites
  • The goal is to preserve a baseline of the Earth for:
    • climate research
    • archaeology
    • conservation
    • future generations
  • The episode highlights a project with the Yakutat Tlingit Tribe in Alaska, where scans help document threatened land, burial sites, and shoreline protections before further environmental change.

Key Takeaways

  • All information is fragile: digital files, websites, books, and even landscapes can be lost or altered.
  • Preservation is political: who controls archives, access, and ownership matters as much as the technology itself.
  • Public access is central: the Internet Archive’s mission is rooted in the idea that knowledge should remain available to everyone.
  • Future preservation must be layered:
    • digital archiving for web and media
    • DNA for ultra-long-term storage
    • LiDAR for environmental and cultural baselines
  • You can help preserve history: even ordinary users can archive webpages and contribute to collective memory.

Challenges and Risks

Digital obsolescence

  • Old storage media become unreadable.
  • File formats, operating systems, and playback tools disappear.

Legal and corporate barriers

  • E-book licensing limits true ownership.
  • Publishers and media companies may block archival access.

Scale

  • The internet, books, and global environmental data are too vast to preserve perfectly.
  • Archiving requires prioritization, partnerships, and constant maintenance.

Climate change and physical loss

  • Entire ecosystems, sites, and communities are changing too quickly to document them all in time.
  • Once altered, many places can never be fully recovered.

Final Message

The episode’s central argument is that preserving knowledge “forever” is less about perfection than persistence. Whether it is a floppy disk, a webpage, a book, a DNA sample, or a LiDAR scan of a disappearing landscape, the work of memory depends on repeated, collective effort. The future will inherit what we choose to record now.

Practical Actions Mentioned

  • Use the Internet Archive’s Save Page Now tool to archive important web pages.
  • Support digital preservation efforts and libraries.
  • Back projects that document endangered cultures, sites, and ecosystems.
  • Treat archiving as a shared civic responsibility, not just a technical task.