Researchers Cram 700TB of Data Into One Gram of DNA

[tuanmai]

Could the key to unlimited storage be found in our very own DNA?

Researchers Cram 700TB of Data Into One Gram of DNA : Read more

 

[pacioli]

DNA gets broken down very fast by microbes.
I wonder how they can prevent them from getting at the DNA?

 

[chuckydb]

[citation][nom]pacioli[/nom]DNA gets broken down very fast by microbes.I wonder how they can prevent them from getting at the DNA?[/citation]

Well, if the data magically gets transformed by a virus, that will help me explain all that 700TB of po...

 

[Johmama]

This is really interesting. That is an insane amount of data in such a little volume of material. And it's DNA no less. Just the thought that we can write information onto DNA and read it back is mind-blowing. That would be really cool if people wrote to DNA instead of HDD's and SSD's in the future. (Probably not, but one can fantasize; this sounds very sci-fi-like).

 

[mikewong]

Ok, so the process is costly and lengthy for reading writing to a DNA storage. What if they use a simpler and bigger version of a DNA? I don't mind carrying 700 TB in the size of a.... 3.5" HDD.

 

[Verrin]

If spintronics ever proves viable, we might still get it to write huge amount of data in an even smaller volumes of space yet.

 

[twelch82]

[citation][nom]Johmama[/nom]This is really interesting. That is an insane amount of data in such a little volume of material. And it's DNA no less. Just the thought that we can write information onto DNA and read it back is mind-blowing. That would be really cool if people wrote to DNA instead of HDD's and SSD's in the future. (Probably not, but one can fantasize; this sounds very sci-fi-like).[/citation]

It's really not that surprising to me, because the parallels between how life works and how computers work seem extremely strong. If you think about it in the context of computer code, even the similarities in DNA among different living organisms make sense. Most of the core code will be similar and shared, regardless of the task the program performs.

Maybe it is no coincidence that humans developed computer technology because it reflects how we ourselves work, and consequently, also how we think.

 

[twelch82]

I also think that at some point, we will be able to produce a debugger for DNA.

It will never be an easy task, similar to how it would not be an easy task to figure out how a large complex program like Windows 7 works without having access to the source code, but I believe it will all make sense when we can fully reverse-engineer it.

 

[viridiancrystal]

They could store all of the 2011 digital world in 4 grams of DNA

That is the same weight as a teaspoon of sugar. Wow.

 

[Guest]

Perhaps, human DNA contains volumes of stored data, information or messages from our creator(s), if you believe in creationism.

 

[bobusboy]

Forget cloud storage: You could literally keep all of your personal information on you at all times

 

[Guest]

Send me a hard drive based on this technology or it didn't happen.

 

[thecolorblue]

[citation][nom]mikewong[/nom]Ok, so the process is costly and lengthy for reading writing to a DNA storage. What if they use a simpler and bigger version of a DNA? I don't mind carrying 700 TB in the size of a.... 3.5" HDD.[/citation]
The size of DNA is the size of DNA... there is no larger version.
The only difference is the length of the DNA chain... but a shorter span of DNA would carry less information. For all practical purposes, there is no difference in size between what would store 1 kilobyte of information vs 100000 terabyte of information. It's all ridiculously tiny.

 

[freggo]

Data Mutation anyone ?

You store a bunch of chick flicks in your DNA memory and a few years later when you play them back they all mutated into Zombie movies.

OK, had too much silly juice again

 

[ddemon]

I'm just imagining getting up in the morning and instead of turning the computer on I would be feeding it, making sure it has water, cleaning it's litter tray, giving it a pat on the head and then asking it to checking my facebook ....lol

 

[Guest]

DNA in solution does not survive for thousands of years. It undergoes spontaneous decomposition. It is for a very good reason that our cells are armed with a variety of repair processes to maintain their DNA's integrity.

 

[bin1127]

If they mixed up the DNA sample in someone's gene therapy we could have walking libraries. They can call it the super librarian serum.

 

[master_chen]

I wonder what Johnny (The Mnemonic) would've said...

 

[Guest]

Pretty soon humans would be able to have personal copies of all the digital information in the world. Wikipedia would be rendered "idle".

 

[koga73]

Ha getting a computer "virus" would now have a whole new meaning

 

[master_chen]

[citation][nom]mechanus[/nom]Pretty soon humans would be able to have personal copies of all the digital information in the world.[/citation]
"I carry all my porn with me".

 

[dalethepcman]

1 gram of DNA is how much? Nice to give something a measurement of volume, but a reference point would have helped. Lets compare to a grain of sand.

Assuming an average weight of 68 milligrams / grain then it takes 15.4 grains of sand = 1 gram

DNA is very tiny, so tiny its weighed in Daltons. so lets do a grain of sand in Daltons.

One gain of sand weighs 3.9X10^22 Daltons (39,022,820,000,000,000,000,000) or 39 sextillion daltons.

One molecule of DNA weights about 1 million daltons
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/002796.html

39 sextillion / 1 million is a much easier number only 39 quadrillion, or 39 million billions. Now lets make that even easier, instead of using 700 terabytes, lets use bytes instead. Divide that number by 700 trillion and you are down to a respectable 55.7 bytes.

Now multiple by 15.4 (grains of sand / gram) so we can extrapolate our final results.

The original article writers could have easily stated this is simple terms instead of using a grossly over scale measurement such as a gram.

A single strand of DNA holds roughly 850 bytes of data.

 

[fb39ca4]

Anyone remember the article about how there was petabytes or something of data in human sperm?

 

[digiex]

So how many bytes of data do my body store?

 

[master_chen]

And remember: Yautja race has triple-helix DNA chain.