Researchers are continually developing more efficient ways to store digital data. DNA, the building blocks of life, emerged in the mid-1990s as a potential medium. Harvard scientists in 2012 encoded a book in synthesized DNA, and researchers in March reported that they had stored 200 megabytes of data in it.
In a report published today in Nature, Harvard researchers demonstrate that it is possible to archive images and movies in the DNA of living E. coli cells using the gene editing technology CRISPR.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Scientists have inserted a GIF of a horse into living bacteria — did your brain just explode?
https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/12/harvard-nature-crispr-cas1-cas2-horse-gif/?ncid=rss&utm_source=tcfbpage&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=FaceBook&sr_share=facebook
Tomi Engdahl says:
Movie Encoded in DNA is the First Step Toward Datalogging with Living Cells
http://hackaday.com/2017/07/13/movie-encoded-in-dna-is-the-first-step-toward-datalogging-with-living-cells/
While DNA is a reasonably good storage medium, it’s not particularly fast, cheap, or convenient to read and write to.
What if living cells could simplify that by recording useful data into their own DNA for later analysis? At Harvard Medical School, scientists are working towards this goal by using CRISPR to encode and retrieve a short video in bacterial cells.
Scientists replay movie encoded in DNA
“Molecular Recorder” would reveal secrets of brain development.
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/scientists-replay-movie-encoded-dna