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Using Bacterial DNA For Data Storage
NPV writes "January ACM Communications has an article on the use of DNA in genetically modified bacteria to store information. This is an attempt to achieve the ultimate in archival storage (one of the modified bacteria can tolerate 1000X more radiation than a human being). Now just suppose that the "junk DNA" in the human genome is the documentation package for the machine code. Who wrote that manual?" Here's the article abstract.
I mean these bacteria have evolved for millions of years to be as streamlined as possible and yet i a few short years we can figure it all out and more. Also we can make it better of course.
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
Isn't allowing for mutations an important aspect of DNA. Doesn't make for a good place to store info methinks.
Disclaimer: I am not advocating any behavior whatsoever here :)
Just think: We could store entire textbooks in our DNA. The professors would have no way of taking it out of us. That would be interesting. Not only that, but we could but tons of info there. The only problem is that we would need a way to access it.
This is interesting though. What if the entire human population became just a storage bank? What if EVERY LIVING THING on Earth became part of this bank? That would be an interesting scenario. For now, though, I'll just stick to normal HD's. A big problem, I suppose, is in changing the data. I wonder how many bacteria they had to go through to get it right.
(one of the modified bacteria can tolerate 1000X more radiation than a human being).
I haven't read the article (don't have access to where I am) nor have I thought about this subject much, but one question I have is how the authors keep the sequences under selective pressure. DNA sequences are only conserved over many years if evolution needs them. Non-coding regions (So called "junk-DNA", poor choice of words, btw) would easily mutate into other sequences. One could imagine sequencing many cells, and infer the original sequence, but this gets more expensive as time goes on (as the number of sequences you need to sequence goes up).
-Sean
That keeps four copies of it's DNA in rings and error checks constantly. They're probably using one of these, as it happens to be very radiation resistant, I'm guessing they used these, and so the mutation rate would be very, very low. So it wouldn't keep forever, but would for a very long time.
You could also put error checking (parity, checksums, etc) so once you found some bactera you could check to make sure they had the right version and not a mutation
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
"the ultimate in archival storage (one of the modified bacteria can tolerate 1000X more radiation than a human being)."
What kind of comparison is that? Are human beings presently used as archival storage in irradiated areas?
Seems that the punched metal tape the Army uses for ultimate reliability is the way to go. Even if the stuff rusts, is radioactive and glowing red, you can still read it.
Reminds me of that Star Trek episode The Chase, in which Dr. Galen, Captain Picards old Archaeology professor, found genetic data-blocks from various species around the galaxy stored in the junk portion of each species DNA, including our own. When a sufficient number of these data blocks were put together it completed a stellar map, identifying the precise location of the original origin of life on out planet and countless others. The jury is still out on the Panspermia Theory, but my own hunch is that there is lots of intelligence out there vastly older and greater than we are.
Planet P Blog - Liberty with Technology.
www.enthea.org
Ha! Raelians can't read biology and think p53 is a new gene (first published 1984) that makes evolution impossible, cos its a DNA repair enzyme, which makes mutation and hence evolution impossible (1).
Which is true in that DNA repair exists and p53 is involved in it (although its more involved in getting cells to commit suicide if there feeling a bit precancerous), but it won't stop genes mutating as all it does is checks/corrects DNA base pairing sometimes correcting it the wrong way creating a new mutation
(1) under Evidence -> Science & Future -> Alt theorys of Evolution.... (F***ing frames)
PS Being involved in human gene nomenclature I feel duty bound to mention p53 approved symbol is TP53.
Yeah.. the fundamental reason why the machines kept the humans alive (energy generation) is a completely absurd contrivance. That always bugged me, but not enough to ruin the movie. It does force an unreal (In addition to surreal? Whoah...) feeling to the whole movie, makes you go, "OK, we're in comic book/fantasy land now". It's somehow not as gritty and dark as it could be if you could actually believe machines might eventually enslave (breed, really) our entire species in a virtual zoo for a reason you could actually swallow.
They coulda used some wonky vague ass stuff about the machines figuring out a method of harvesting the untapped power of the human consciousness and I would've been happier... the mind could generate the power itself somehow (emotional energy perhaps?) or maybe act as a conduit for drawing energy from extradimensional space. It would also give em a reason to stimulate and develop helathy human brains via their Matrix simulation instead of just keeping em doped all the time.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
Just had to throw in that there *are* non-coding intergeneic sequences (akin to introns) and bunches of other non-coding goodies in prokaryotes including bacteriophages such as T4 (look back to the mid-80's).
:-)
And if you consider RNA editing (where the wacking out or modification of nucleotides prior to translation), you gain a tremendous amount of flexibility in the smaller genomes of these bugs.
Of course, the long term storage they're looking at is best done by the spores of gram positive bugs, like Bacillus subtilis. When they're in this non-replicative stage, there is little chance of sequence alteration. And by having, some 10^8 spores around, even if there were a few mucking things up, the majority would maintin the original sequence.
But engineering a bug to not alter sequences is much more difficult than knocking out RecA.