Using a novel molecular-data-storage technique, researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have encoded a quote from Jane Austen's classic novel Mansfield Park in a series of oligomers, which a third party could read back without prior knowledge of the structures that encoded the passage. The findings, published April 21st in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science, illustrate a method to encode data that allows for greater information density than DNA-based approaches and that relies on urethane-like plastics—highly accessible and structurally modifiable chemical feedstocks—instead of nucleic acids.