Rise Or Downfall Of Our Humanity?

Harvard Cracks DNA Storage, Crams 700 Terabytes Of Data Into a Single Gram

A bioengineer and geneticist at Harvard’s Wyss Institute have successfully stored 5.5 petabits of data — around 700 terabytes — in a single gram of DNA, smashing the previous DNA data density record by a thousand times.

Just think about it for a moment: One gram of DNA can store 700 terabytes of data. That’s 14,000 50-gigabyte Blu-ray discs… in a droplet of DNA that would fit on the tip of your pinky. To store the same kind of data on hard drives — the densest storage medium in use today — you’d need 233 3TB drives, weighing a total of 151 kilos. In Church and Kosuri’s case, they have successfully stored around 700 kilobytes of data in DNA — Church’s latest book, in fact — and proceeded to make 70 billion copies (which they claim, jokingly, makes it the best-selling book of all time!) totaling 44 petabytes of data stored.

Looking forward, they foresee a world where biological storage would allow us to record anything and everything without reservation. Today, we wouldn’t dream of blanketing every square meter of Earth with cameras, and recording every moment for all eternity/human posterity — we simply don’t have the storage capacity. There is a reason that backed up data is usually only kept for a few weeks or months — it just isn’t feasible to have warehouses full of hard drives, which could fail at any time. If the entirety of human knowledge — every book, uttered word, and funny cat video — can be stored in a few hundred kilos of DNA, though… well, it might just be possible to record everything (hello, police state!)

It’s also worth noting that it’s possible to store data in the DNA of living cells — though only for a short time. Storing data in your skin would be a fantastic way of transferring data securely…

I believed for several years that technology would be humanities ultimate downfall. I honestly don't believe we are ready for this kind of technology yet, technology will be used for all the wrong reasons. Say goodbye to our freedom if it isn't properly used. That, I can guarantee.

Hell, it could even be worse then I even imagine. Who knows what the implications could be. I'm glad we live in interesting times as I feel we are getting closer and closer to witnessing either the rise of downfall of our humanity.

Leave your thoughts if you have anything.

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Who's to say our DNA isn't already storing all the information about our existence? Does it have to be confined to the brain? What is the brain but a repository of DNA just like the rest of the body?

The real story would not be the storage of information but the recovery of it.

Sorry for my incompetence but I don't really get it. I understand we can store it in DNA but how exactly do we access this information.

Edit: I should add that I understand the reading that they say they can store data in DNA but ya that part doesn't really make sense either, lol. I must be looking at in too much of a CPU way.

Originally posted by aaaiii
Who's to say our DNA isn't already storing all the information about our existence? Does it have to be confined to the brain? What is the brain but a repository of DNA just like the rest of the body?

The real story would not be the storage of information but the recovery of it.

Good idea. Like I said, it could be bigger then I thought. I mean really, who knows what the implications are.

Could the fact DNA can store data be the reason why some animals like salmon just know what to do from the very beginning of life? I've always wondered about that because the adult salmon die without teaching anything to the new generation.