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Scientists Discover a New Way To Use DNA As a Storage Device (betanews.com)
Mark Wilson shares a report from BetaNews: Researchers from the Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) in Ireland have developed a way to use bacteria to archive up to up to one zettabyte in one gram of DNA. The technique uses double-strained DNA molecules called plasmids to encode data which is stored in the Novablue strain of the E Coli bacteria. The Novablue bacteria has a fixed location, making it viable for storage, and the data can be transferred by releasing a mobile HB101 strain of E Coli which uses a process called conjugation to extract the data. The antibiotics tetracycline and streptomycin are used to control this process. The method is currently not only expensive, but also slow. Data retrieval takes up to three days at the moment, but researchers believe it should be possible to dramatically speed up this process. Equipment already exists that can be used to write to DNA in seconds. Stability and security are also an issue right now, but it is very early days for the technique, and these current downsides are not viewed as being significant enough to write it off. Potential uses for this method of data storage that have been suggested include the recording of medical records in human DNA, and increasing the traceability of the food chain.
Do you want the Resident Evil T-Virus? Because this is how you get the Resident Evil T-Virus.
I recall Harvard guys doing data encoding with DNA a few years ago. Same cost/benefit in their technique (don't recall exact specifics beyond the four bases = quaternary number system in their encoding scheme): The information density is vast, but I/O slooow.
Their application ideas were interesting though; like tiny cameras with memory integrated into wall paint - it would archive history of the room. All kinds of stuff one would think of needing tape backup circa 1995 these guys were pretty sure could be future niche for DNA memory. Interesting observation was how tough DNA is; million year old examples abound throughout wide variety of earth environments.
For those wondering, there's been studies and research on maximum genome size, and beyond a certain point (a couple hundred picograms) the mechanisms don't work for copying/processing/maintaining DNA. The largest animal genome would be around 132 micrograms (marbled lungfish)
http://www.genomesize.com/stat...
A picogram is 1/1,000,000,000,000 of a gram, so yeah, getting up to a full gram of the stuff, you can store a LOT of raw data - but it's not something you're going to have survive on its own without a very specialized sort of engineered life/system, and likely secondary specialized critters to defend it against regular old microorganisms.
The other problem would be read/write speed - DNA replication isn't fast with current life processes... scale that up a few billion times, and you're definitely going to have to do something different than how life as is does things.
Ryan Fenton
If the E.Coli breeds along with its data, who do you sue?
Much more important question than those of mere technical possibility.
If it takes 3 days for a bacteria to produce a datum, then surely 3 bacteria can produce the datum in a day. Add a million or so and you've got yourself a speedy little data retrieval device. It's nothing but an engineering problem.