Microsoft Buys Into DNA Data Storage (ieee.org)

Posted by BeauHD on Wednesday April 27, 2016 @01:01PM from the synthetic-DNA-to-digital-data-storage dept.

the_newsbeagle writes: More than 2.5 exabytes of data is created every day, and some experts estimate that 90% of all data in the world today was created in the last two years. Clearly, storing all this data is becoming an issue. One idea is DNA data storage, in which digital files are converted into the genetic code of four nucleotides (As, Cs, Gs, and Ts). Microsoft just announced that it's testing out this idea, getting synthetic bio company Twist Bioscience to produce 10 million strands of DNA that encode some mystery file the company provided. Using DNA for long-term data storage is attractive because it's durable and efficient. For example, scientists can read the genome from a woolly mammoth hair dating from 20,000 years ago.

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More Important Worry by Roger+W+Moore · 2016-04-27 14:18 · Score: 3, Interesting

Actually what I would be more worried about is how long will it be before someone's computer file turns out encode into a real virus and we have some new, nasty disease on our hands simply because some holiday photo produces the right DNA sequence for a new variant of Ebola.