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Scientists Store Entire Textbook In DNA

Posted by timothy on from the ok-but-where-are-the-tiny-spectacles? dept.

sciencehabit writes with this mind-boggling bit from Science Magazine: "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. All of this has been mostly theoretical—until now. In a new study, researchers stored an entire genetics textbook in less than a picogram of DNA — one trillionth of a gram — an advance that could revolutionize our ability to save data."

24 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. Take it one step further by Intrepid+imaginaut · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Store data in DNA, then figure out a way for our brains to interpret it as knowledge. Imagine being born with the combined understanding of all of the major fields of science, history, languages, crafts, trades, from day one.

    1. Re:Take it one step further by Dyinobal · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Knowledge but not understanding. I think it is important to remember that those are two different things. Still it would be pretty neat.

    2. Re:Take it one step further by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Knowing mankind, they would use it so we're born with knowledge about who's in charge, the limits of our freedoms and the religion appropriate for your country.

    3. Re:Take it one step further by DigiShaman · · Score: 3, Interesting

      At what point would individuality be replaced with fabrication?

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    4. Re:Take it one step further by __aaeihw9960 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Knowledge with no understanding = Memorization. I can memorize the parts of the brain with no understanding of how they work. To do anything useful with the information you have to be able to apply it.

    5. Re:Take it one step further by maxwell+demon · · Score: 2

      What's it like to have knowledge that you don't understand? That concept doesn't make sense to me.

      For example, I know that some people hate math, but I don't understand it.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    6. Re:Take it one step further by jader3rd · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Imagine being born with the combined understanding of all of the major fields of science, history, languages, crafts, trades, from day one.

      Isn't that what made the goa'uld so evil?

    7. Re:Take it one step further by Millennium · · Score: 2

      Until we figure out the means to update DNA remotely, this wouldn't be as awesome as it sounds. Your knowledge of history could be outdated as soon as day two. Science and languages would fall out of date only slightly less quickly. Crafts and trades would take longer, but would almost certainly be at least a little outdated by the time you were mature enough to enter the workforce. And all of this would be hard-coded into a person's knowledge, so overcoming that hurdle would likely be very difficult.

    8. Re:Take it one step further by Urban+Garlic · · Score: 3, Insightful

      > What's it like to have knowledge that you don't understand? That concept doesn't make sense to me.

      That would be like if someone told you about a concept, so you knew it existed, but it didn't make sense to you.

      --
      2*3*3*3*3*11*251
    9. Re:Take it one step further by SomePgmr · · Score: 2

      Best I can figure, the old "knowledge" vs "understanding" is just a discussion of completeness. We like to think there's some kind of magic between the two, but I don't think there is.

  2. How fast? by cyberjock1980 · · Score: 2

    It appears on the surface that the data isn't quickly(sub-ms speeds) stored or recovered. This technology could be very useful for backing up large quantities of data. The real question is how many MB/GB/whatever per second can be read/written to this new "media"?

    1. Re:How fast? by coldandcalculating · · Score: 5, Informative

      The fastest DNA polymerases can copy a template at around 250 bases/sec. Chemical DNA synthesis is much slower.

      As for read speeds, DNA sequencing can be done serially (500-800 bases in a matter of hours - 1 cent per base) or massively parallel (100-200 bases per read; 100 million reads; overnight - $1000 per chip by year's end?)

      Tools allowing for rapid synthesis (write) and sequencing (read) of DNA would enable a biotech revolution similar in scope and impact to the computing revolution of the last century. As far as I know, this technology is still incredibly far away, but definitely merits relentless R&D.

    2. Re:How fast? by rnaiguy · · Score: 2

      Given the machine they used in the paper to read the data back, it would take about 10 DAYS to read out the data they encoded. The problem is that it takes that time to get any data at all. So they could parrallelize it to get better MB/sec (or realistically MB/hr), but with current tech, the latency is 10 days, with a theoretical maximum of 100gigabits of uncompressed data read out in that time, (but realistically much less since they rely on redundancy to reduce error, and have overhead for their encoding system).

  3. Re:backups? by sourcerror · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yeah, but then you have to pay child support.

  4. Re:Put the DNA in a cell already by Yvan256 · · Score: 2

    They already tried it. It became a human.

  5. I hope that they have good error correction... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2

    I would think that copying errors and degradation would be a serious issue if attempting to use DNA for arbitrary data storage. In organisms, we can even observe some segments of DNA(like those that code for elements of vital metabolic processes) are highly similar across a broad range of organisms, while non-coding or minimally important regions can vary wildly from individual to individual or even cell to cell; because the penalty for getting them wrong is so low...

    Unless the data you are interested in also have, by some impressive coincidence, vital biological importance cruft buildup(or even substantial deletion) could be quite rapid. DNA isn't without self repair mechanisms; but one of the big ones is 'mutants dying' rather than something more elegant.

  6. Just in time by arielCo · · Score: 3, Funny
    The answer to the last Ask Slashdot: Protecting Data From a Carrington Event?:

    I've been wondering: is it actually possible to store or protect data in such a way that if such an event occurred, data survives and is recoverable in a useful form? Optical and magnetic media would probably be rendered useless by a large enough solar flare, and storing source code/graphics in paper format would be impractical to recover, so Slashdot, short of building a Faraday cage 100 km below the surface of the Moon, how could you protect data to survive a modern day Carrington event?"

    So, kactusotp, there you have it: splice it into as many mice / E. coli as needed, release into the wild.

    --
    This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
  7. Re:At a gaga act. by bmo · · Score: 3, Informative

    What sort of textbook can you write with nothing but G, A, T, and C?

    The same sort of textbook you can write in zeroes and ones, but in base 4 instead of base 2.

    Happy now?

    --
    BMO

  8. Here's an example by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 2

    I can't think of an example from something that everyone should know, but I'll attempt to answer this.

    1) There are two tides each day, one when the moon is directly overhead, and one when the moon is directly underneath. Since the gravitational attraction of the moon causes tides, can you explain why there is a tide when the moon is directly underneath?

    2) The fourier transform converts from time domain to frequency domain; ie - it takes an audio WAV file of amplitudes over time and converts it to a list of frequencies over time. To do this you multiply by a complex exponential and integrate. Can you explain why this works? In other words, why does multiplying by the exponential and integrating convert from time domain to frequency domain? (Don't look at the answer until you can explain it yourself.)

    3) In economics it is well known that a little inflation is good, a lot of inflation is bad, and negative inflation is very bad. Can you tell me what the correct value is? Can you tell me how important it is to hit the correct value exactly (ie - is the good/bad measure relatively flat or sharply peaked)? Can you tell me how to measure inflation in such a way that all economists would agree?

  9. Fundies by Tablizer · · Score: 2

    encoded an entire genetics textbook in DNA...

    Fundamentalists did the same thing. Here is the decoded version:

    G O D . D I D . I T

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  10. Re:In other news ... by Tablizer · · Score: 2

    Patent lawsuits will be worse now; Apple just merged with God.

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  11. Re:Genetically-Modified Schoolbooks? by Tablizer · · Score: 2

    Soon, students will be able to claim that their homework ate them!

    The assignment was about Soviet Russia, no doubt.
       

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  12. Star Trek by SuperTechnoNerd · · Score: 2

    There was a star trek episode where this klingon could inject himself with encoded top secret files. I see reality is catching up with sci-fi

  13. Re:Brewster you've screwed us all! by butalearner · · Score: 3, Funny

    I am disappointed that nobody has pointed out that we can now measure human mass in terms of Libraries of Congress. For example: Americans can now proudly proclaim that we carry, on average, at least ten million more Libraries of Congress than citizens of any other country. Or: I really shouldn't have eaten those atomic wings, I just dropped two million Libraries of Congress from spending so much time in the bathroom.