{"id":3863,"date":"2012-08-17T06:11:30","date_gmt":"2012-08-16T20:11:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/?p=3863"},"modified":"2012-08-17T06:11:35","modified_gmt":"2012-08-16T20:11:35","slug":"dna-as-a-storage-medium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/2012\/08\/dna-as-a-storage-medium-3863.html","title":{"rendered":"DNA as a Storage Medium"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m always on the lookout for new forms of data storage, because it is important that knowledge is retained beyond any global disaster. Not only is this a\u00a0marvelous\u00a0new method, but it also suggests either in the past (alien intervention anyone?) or the future knowledge might be stored in living creatures or plants.<\/p>\n

When it comes to storing information, hard drives don’t hold a candle to DNA. Our genetic code packs billions of gigabytes into a single gram. A mere milligram of the molecule could encode the complete text of every book in the Library of Congress and have plenty of room to spare.<\/p>\n
…an inkjet printer embeds short fragments of chemically synthesized DNA onto the surface of a tiny glass chip. To encode a digital file, researchers divide it into tiny blocks of data and convert these data not into the 1s and 0s of typical digital storage media, but rather into DNA\u2019s four-letter alphabet of As, Cs, Gs, and Ts.<\/p>\n
…To demonstrate its system in action, the team used the DNA chips to encode a genetics book co-authored by Church. It worked. After converting the book into DNA and translating it back into digital form, the team\u2019s system had a raw error rate of only two errors per million bits, amounting to a few single-letter typos. That is on par with DVDs and far better than magnetic hard drives.
\n[via Science magazine<\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
At this stage the DNA is synthetic – not a bad thing in terms of storage, but certainly not built into anything living. And the other side of the coin \u00a0is that anyone receiving the data needs to know it is there, and have access to a\u00a0DNA sequencer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m always on the lookout for new forms of data storage, because it is important that knowledge is retained beyond any global disaster. Not only is this a\u00a0marvelous\u00a0new method, but it also suggests either in the past (alien intervention anyone?) or the future knowledge might be stored in living creatures or plants.
\nWhen it comes to storing information, hard drives don’t hold a candle to DNA. Our genetic code packs billions of gigabytes into a single gram. A mere milligram of the molecule could encode the complete text of every book in the Library of Congress and have plenty of room to spare.
\n…an inkjet printer embeds short fragments of chemically synthesized DNA onto the surface of a tiny glass chip. To encode a digital file, researchers divide it into tiny blocks of data and convert these data not into the 1s and 0s of typical digital storage media, but rather into …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,283],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dna","category-ufos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3863"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3870,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3863\/revisions\/3870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}