Science news this week: A lost Biblical tree and a memory crystal that could 'survive to the end of the universe'

A composite of a lost Biblical tree resurrected from 1,000-year-old mystery seed found in the Judean Desert and the human genome stored inside near-indestructible '5D memory crystal'.

From record-breaking stays in space to a "knife-wielding orca," it has been a busy week in the world of science news. But the story that has most captured our imagination is that of what Earth could look like 8 billion years into the future. The exoplanet KMT-2020-BLG-0414, located 4,000 light-years from ours, is a rocky world that orbits a white dwarf — a hot Earth-size core from a sun that has exhausted all its nuclear fuel, just as Earth's sun will in billions of years.

However, before the sun shrinks to this diminutive size, it will expand into a red giant, which threatens to swallow Earth alongside Mercury and Venus. If our planet survives, then we may well resemble KMT-2020-BLG-0414. Whether humanity will be there to see it …