Only a few years ago, Tuesday’s announcement that a glove believed to be connected to the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie in Tucson, Arizona, had no match to a DNA database would have been a dead end.

Shakespeare’s entire catalog of sonnets and eight of his tragedies, all of Wikipedia’s English-language pages, and one of the first movies ever made: scientists have been able to fit the contents of all these works in a space smaller than a tiny test tube.

Since the dawn of the computer age, researchers have wrestled with two persistent challenges: how to store ever-increasing reams of data and how to protect that information from unintended access. Now,

A U.S. bankruptcy judge ruled that bankrupt DNA-testing company 23andMe has the right to sell its customers’ DNA data to potential bidders. But 23andMe has no such right. In fact, it would be unconstitutional for 23andMe to sell its customers’ DNA data.

Engineered DNA can store massive amounts of data while also encrypting it, opening the door to ultra-secure, long-term digital storage.

Federal and local authorities will use genetic genealogy to analyze DNA found at Nancy Guthrie's home as the ongoing investigation into her possible abduction stretches into its third week.

Genealogical sites Ancestry, 23andMe and MyHeritage say they can be asked to comply with court orders seeking information. Another genealogical site, GEDmatch, said its policy is