Cosmic Rays Can Destroy Your Computer Data

Leo Laporte talks about how it's possible, even though highly unlikely, for gamma-ray burst to affect your computer's hard drive.
The idea may sound like an episode from “Star Trek” but the same cosmic rays that warm the earth’s atmosphere also carry energetic particles that can cause upsets in earth-based equipment. These single event upsets (SEUs) occur in digital circuits when an energized particle causes a transistor to flip on or off from its correct state and can cause computers to crash and routers to reset.