DNA Is Our New Data Storage Technique
MessageToEagle.com – Digital data, including videos, photos and text collected by devices is expected to hit 44 trillion gigabytes by 2020. At its current rate, the world is producing more data than the capacity to store it.
So, obviously, this can soon be a serious problem, but scientists think they have come up with a solution. Researchers say that in the near future it will be possible to store large amounts of data in DNA.
Researchers from the University of Washington and Microsoft Research have developed one of the first complete systems to encode, store and retrieve digital data using DNA molecules, capable of storing information millions of times more compactly than current data storage technologies.
Four images were successfully encoded into DNA snippets. More significantly, the researchers were able to reverse the process and perfectly retrieve the images without losing a single byte of information.
The images, which are encoded as a string of 0’s and 1’s, are converted into a string of A’s, C’s, T’s and G’s—the bases that pair to form DNA. A DNA molecule with that sequence is then chemically synthesized and dried out for storing with billions of other molecules.
See also:
What Is The Human Genome And How Big Is It?
“This works for any digital data, not just images,” says Luis Ceze, an associate professor of electrical engineering at the University of Washington and one of the authors of the study. “We used images because images and video tend to take lots of storage space.”
The benefit of this data storage method is that DNA can be extremely long-lasting. The downside is that reading and writing DNA is still very slow, so it’s good for applications where you want to keep information around for a long time but not access it often.
MessageToEagle.com
Expand for referencesRelated Posts
-
The Ancient Flying Machines Of Icarus and Daedalus
No Comments | Aug 16, 2014
-
First Pay Toilets Were Invented In Ancient Rome In 74 A.D.
No Comments | Jan 29, 2017
-
Astonishing Secrets Of Legendary Kachinas: Watchers Of The Hopi
No Comments | Apr 8, 2017
-
A Journey To The World’s First Cloned Village
No Comments | Jun 23, 2012
-
A Diamond Bigger Than Earth Is Located In The Constellation Of Cancer
No Comments | Sep 25, 2017
-
Incredible Ancient Masks – Evidence Of Giants In Bolivia?
No Comments | Mar 25, 2020
-
Warp-Speed Planets Are Some Of The Fastest Objects In The Milky Way
No Comments | Mar 22, 2012
-
Ilha de Queimada Grande: The Snake Island Is World’s Deadliest Island
No Comments | May 18, 2016
-
Ancient Egyptian Toys And Games In Focus
No Comments | Jan 15, 2016
-
What Is The Largest Living Structure On Earth?
No Comments | Jan 20, 2016