If you thought storing data inside DNA was cool, here’s something even more fascinating. Scientists at the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) have invented a way to store digital information inside synthetic polymer molecules. In short, they are transforming tiny bits of plastic into memory banks.

They even used their molecular system to encode a complex 11-character password and then decode it using only electrical signals, without any power, and the expensive and bulky tools typically used for reading molecular data.