"We already know that DNA is a robust way to store information because we can extract it from bones of woolly mammoths, which date back tens of thousands of years, and make sense of it," said Nick Goldman of the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) in Cambridge.
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"It's also incredibly small, dense and does not need any power for storage, so shipping and keeping it is easy."
The project entails taking data in the form of zeros and 1s in computing's binary code, and transcribing it into "Base-3" code, which uses zeros, 1s and 2s.
The data is transcribed for a second time into DNA code, which is based on the A, C, G and T. A block of five letters is used for a single binary digit.
The letters are then turned into molecules, using lab-dish chemicals.
Now this is cool!
This breakthrough allow data to be stored and transported easily. Think f all the data that can be stored in the DNA...
It is noted in the article that the DNA is completely man-made. The scientists do not intend to store data in any living thing, nor do they care for messing with life...still cool though.
www.smh.com.au
(visit the link for the full news article)
edit on 24-1-2013 by daaskapital because: internet screw up
