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Salmon DNA Used In Data Storage Device

Posted by Soulskill on from the also-tastes-great-on-the-grill dept.

Zothecula writes "Scientists from National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany have created a 'write-once-read-many-times' (WORM) memory device that combines electrodes, silver nanoparticles, and salmon DNA. While the current device is simply a proof-of-concept model, the researchers have stated that DNA could turn out to be a less expensive alternative to traditional inorganic materials such as silicon."

18 of 51 comments (clear)

  1. Um... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sounds fishy!

    1. Re:Um... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      As they age, what will they smell like?

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_rot

    2. Re:Um... by walkerp1 · · Score: 2

      Sounds fishy!

      Trout slap!

    3. Re:Um... by LifesABeach · · Score: 2

      Just 2 things came to mind:

      If you can't find your disk drive, look upstream.

      My eyes cross at how one is going to "spawn" a "backup."
      I'm sorry, that thought was just wrong, and its my fault.

    4. Re:Um... by tlhIngan · · Score: 2

      My eyes cross at how one is going to "spawn" a "backup."
       

      You don't. Salmon die after spawning. So your spawned backup becomes your new primary storage.

      (Incidentally, lazy bald eagles rely on this phenomenon to feed - they "catch" the salmon after they've spawned and eat the carcass. Saves them having to hunt and grab live ones.)

    5. Re:Um... by fooslacker · · Score: 2

      Don't you mean intellectually superior eagles?

    6. Re:Um... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      (Incidentally, lazy bald eagles rely on this phenomenon to feed - they "catch" the salmon after they've spawned and eat the carcass. Saves them having to hunt and grab live ones.)

      Would that qualify as spawn camping?

    7. Re:Um... by fredmunge · · Score: 2

      My Cod! Could you scale it back a bit? I mean look chum, I'm floundering at trying to figure out how to respond to such humor. But the tide may turn on whether others will lob and stir further responses. Now I'm not trying to be crabby here, nor am I trying to make anemone. But I just haddock respond. Ok, I'll clam up now.

  2. cheaper, but more stable? by mineral2 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Might be cheaper, but I bet its more prone to mutation and degradation. Will this lead to data evolution?

  3. fish and WORMs by adavies42 · · Score: 4, Funny

    well of course you'd use WORMs with fish....

    --
    Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
    -kfg
    1. Re:fish and WORMs by oodaloop · · Score: 2

      What is this, Soviet Russia?

      --
      Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
    2. Re:fish and WORMs by adavies42 · · Score: 2

      not strictly true, actually--WORM is a perfectly valid concept in data storage. roughly speaking, i'd say the difference is in whether users are meant to be the ones doing the "write once" part.

      --
      Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
      -kfg
  4. Price of salmon by vlm · · Score: 3, Insightful

    combines electrodes, silver nanoparticles, and salmon DNA. ... DNA could turn out to be a less expensive alternative to traditional inorganic materials such as silicon.

    could turn out = Weasel words. After I arrive at home, it could turn out that space aliens have swapped my wife out for a supermodel as part of an alien sociology research study regarding recreational human reproductive activities, but I'm thinking its unlikely.

    Have you seen the price of salmon? I had a nice grilled slab last night wrapped in some herb leaves and lemon juice. I could buy quite the stack of I2C flash memory chips for that price. I'm not thinking that the salmon-flashdrive equivalent of the HHGTTG babel-fish is necessarily going to be profitable. And carrying around a dead fish with firefox installed on it sounds like some Stross Laundry series plot.

    --
    "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
  5. Yippy! by aprilcshirley · · Score: 2

    So that salmon oil I'm taking really WILL help my memory!

  6. Re:Shame. by idontgno · · Score: 4, Funny

    Nonsense.

    Computers with tuna-based storage can't be overclocked.

    Everyone knows you can tuna fish, but you can't tuna computer.

    On the other hand, there are rumors of the unreliability of salmon-based information storage.

    --
    Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
  7. Maybe so... by ATestR · · Score: 2

    Hey, if they can run a multi-billion dollar satellite with a dirty rag, why can't they build data storage out of fish bits? I question how well this will work as well.

    --
    âoeAny society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
  8. Still a ways to go.... by mlts · · Score: 2

    30 minutes is good in the lab, but in reality, we need WORM technologies to be readable for a lot longer than the stated 10^5 seconds. We need readability in decades or centuries for the underlying medium, and that is before we slap the ECC layer on top to deal with bad sectors/blocks and such.

    What might complement this technology would be developing a way to cause the DNA to polymerize (similar to how organic tissue is preserved in "Bodies: The Exhibition"), so once it is written, it stays in that form for a far longer period of time.

  9. But does it scale well? by Slicebo · · Score: 4, Funny

    nt