Now, real quick - can anyone explain to me why do we believe that information has to be preserved? And why can't it be transformed?
I'm not sure I can be the one to explain it to you, but if you've got 90 minutes and a good pair of headphones (the volumes a bit low) here's a video of Leonard Susskind explaining very accessibly the gist of black holes and the information paradox; The lecture is from 2008 though so it isn't technically cutting edge, but I think you'd still find it pretty satisfying even with as much as an undergrad education in physics.
From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_information_paradox Not that I know why that "commonly assumed tenet of science" is so commonly assumed... :/The black hole information paradox results from the combination of quantum mechanics and general relativity. It suggests that physical information could permanently disappear in a black hole, allowing many physical states to devolve into the same state. This is controversial because it violates a commonly assumed tenet of science—that in principle complete information about a physical system at one point in time should determine its state at any other time.
As soon as I have the time, I'm going on a hunt to know why that is. I'll report back.