Digital files stored and retrieved using DNA memory

DNA stores memory.

So once again the conspiracy theorist have been proven right.

How many more things are we going to be proven right on?

I haven't seen a thread like this in a while due to the right wingers and Fox News taking over the forum but anyway I digress.

Physics World

rget hard disks or DVDs. If you want to store vast amounts of information look instead to DNA, the molecule of which genes are made. Scientists in the UK have stored about a megabyte's worth of text, images and speech into a speck of DNA and then retrieved that data back almost faultlessly. They say that a larger-scale version of the technology could provide an extremely dense and long-lived form of digital storage that is particularly well suited to data archiving

So... Revisiting all the, "activists your dan memory" threads and mentality and theorist... I'm beginning to wonder.

what do you think guys?

Either way I think this is really cool technology and if we can culturally adapt to our technology without destroying ourselves first then we have an awesome near future in our midst.

I'm just hoping its for everyone and not just the elite.

That article is 3 years old dude.

Updates would be nice.

I've always read the biology articles in the Popular Science magazines. When we look at what DNA does to self-repair, error correct, duplicate and actually retrieve genes, it is very much like a computer. Along the strands of DNA, there are enzymes that constantly move along and inspect every amino acid for damage. They are also attracted by any stray electrons that would indicate ionization has occurred. Histone molecules are used to tag DNA like a word processor.

The nucleus of the cells actually caches genes that are in frequent use. Even the folding of DNA strands within chromosomes is taken advantage of, so that genes that reference each other are close by, when folded, but far apart when stretched out linearly.

I've always wondered whether it would be possible to send a message across the world simply by etching the information onto dust molecules and letting them blow around the atmosphere, or even use a modified virus.

a reply to: Taupin Desciple

Oh wow didn't see that.

Still cool.

Still interested in the topic.

a reply to: onequestion

Just remember that the information is not accessible unless you have a decoder. So you could have an entire spanish to english dictionary in your dna, that doesn't mean that you'll know spanish - not unless you have the hardware to view dna and then decrypt its content with a computer.

I have come across that piece before , you only have to look at the animal world to see how many seem to pass on memories to their young , ie crows etc and some have speculated that humans pass on memories through their DNA to the next generation .

Maybe there is volumes in our DNA waiting to be decoded one day

a reply to: onequestion

Fascinating, but it would be silly to think this technology will be "shared" with the serfs. What would really be interesting would be to decipher whatever language it is that DNA uses and see what memories are already there.

I fail to see the right wing/fox news conspiracy you speak of though.

I do not subscribe to either of the left right paradigms, but people sure are quick to ascribe those values to others readily.

a reply to: onequestion

Very interesting technology.. dna is a code like computer code. Computer code is binary, essentially pulses of energy and memory. Dna is like our super storage for the code to be a human

One day you'll be able to put on a body suit, drop a strand of someone's DNA into a device on your wrist, and experience any moment of their life through your own eyes.

I believe the memories are in there too.

I think that stonerwilliam, BlueJacket and Bone75 are getting the 2 different applications for the terms "computer memory" and "human memories" mixed up (and it's onequestion's fault, pardon any offense for trying to say something that is true, I didn't know how else to put that).

Computer memory (or data stored on a computer medium in binary form) is not quite the same as human memories (even though both are aspects of data storage and retrieval systems). And human memories aren't stored in the DNA or retrieved from the DNA (also remember that "instinct" is not the same as "memories").

The information ("a megabyte's worth of text, images and speech") that was encoded in the DNA (most likely by engineering your own sequence based on a prior agreed upon interpretation and translation of the 4 bases in DNA back and forth to the data you are storing, I didn't read the article even if they did share those details) replaces the information in the sequence that was there (if DNA was borrowed from a living organism rather than starting with a new sequence which seems more likely to me in this particular experiment, but I'm responding now to the way some of you were talking about it). It can probably no longer be used in a living organism because the sequence is meaningless regarding the functionality in the cell (you might be able to tuck it away somewhere where it won't be broken down by the cell's own error-checking and maintenance systems, the sequence would be foreign to the genome of that organism if added to it, like a virus), it's just a different data storage medium. You then come up with a medium to store that DNA sequence and use a machine to read the DNA sequence at the receiving end, and then translate it back into the data that you stored according to the translation you used from data* to DNA sequence.

* = the data they used might be in binary code, 0's and 1's (as in computer code) rather than a quaternary code, A's, C's, T's and G's (as in DNA). It's not hard to translate if you set your own rules or translating language and make a program for that translation from binary code to quaternary code and back again (you can probably do it in Excel)

So then you put our technological abilities together:

1. our ability to produce or engineer a DNA sequence using deoxyribonucleotides (extracted and isolated from living organisms, i.e. 'borrowed') and genetic engineering techniques (probably more expensive than making a DVD)

2. our ability to read DNA sequences (getting a bit cheaper lately, but I'm guessing still far off the production costs of a DVD)

3. our ability to preserve and transport isolated DNA sequences (not in a living organism; again more expensive than sending a DVD on the mail or data over an already established network)

4. our ability to program and translate one code or programming language into another and back again

a reply to: whereislogic

Exactly.

originally posted by: whereislogic
I think that stonerwilliam, BlueJacket and Bone75 are getting the 2 different applications for the terms "computer memory" and "human memories" mixed up (and it's onequestion's fault, pardon any offense for trying to say something that is true, I didn't know how else to put that).

Actually I'm a full stack JavaScript developer in my spare time (mithril, meteor, and mongo specifically), and I've taken a keen interest in DNA over the last few years, so I'm well aware of the difference.

human memories aren't stored in the DNA.

Well I disagree, but I don't have any substantial proof yet. Just clearing up any misunderstanding about my post.

a reply to: Bone75

Well I'd like to repeat that it's easy to get human memories and instinct confused. Human memories are stored in the brain, not in the DNA (and you don't get to pass on your whole brain to the next generation, notice the interdepency of the brain regions for recalling memories mentioned at the end of the video below and the next part, meaning you need all these parts in order to recall the memory or learned behaviour). More details here:


Here's how new connections are made within the brain which is also involved (and again, can't be passed on via or extracted from DNA, as per your comment initially, cause it's not in the DNA, the DNA in all those neuronal cells is the same compared to eachother*, it's the type of connections and how they are structured and formed during a lifetime that matters; and different and unique for every human being based on their experiences and how they've been using their brain, as well as other factors that may affect brain cells, such as diseases screwing things up, diseases that can be genetic, as in present in the DNA, but that's a different subject than "human memories"). * = if they are the same type of neuronal cell