Data in DNA

realJSOP

Well, scientists announced they can now store data in DNA. One has to wonder if that's how life here got started - "Coded" DNA left on the surface of the petri dish that we call "Earth".

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Tim Carmichael

Well... if we follow the timeline of bits available backwards from 64 to 32 to 16 to 8... so on, so forth... it was truly binary programming then? Well... that makes sense... 1 and 0... in a phallic sort of way...

Richard Andrew x64

Then it's only a matter of time before the NSA puts spyware into our DNA!!

The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.

PhilLenoir

Shame they didn't debug the code first

Life is like a s**t sandwich; the more bread you have, the less s**t you eat.

Slacker007

John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:

scientists announced they can now store data in DNA.

This is actually, very interesting to me. I will fight the urge to post back funny/not funny comments. This also sounds a bit scary. :~

Lost User

John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:

announced they can now store data in DNA.

Bah! I've been doing this since I was about 13.

Lost User

Perhaps they have the proteins needed to write such sequences, but it makes me shiver if they try to use this on a living cell. They would probably use 'Junk DNA' as storage space and then it will probably quickly be seen that some sequences were not evolutionary rubble at all. Hopefully such a massive and undeliberate mutation will not be able to survive.

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Lost User

What did you store there before that time? Non-data? :)

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Daniel Pfeffer

DNA uses triplets of four possible nucleotides (Adenosine, Cytosine, Guanine, and Thymine) to encode 21 different amino acids. This implies a 6-bit system with some redundancy. Perhaps DEC's early PDP machines (12-bit PDP-5 & -8, 18-bit PDP-1, 36-bit PDP-7 & -10) were on to something!

If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack. --Winston Churchill

Daniel Pfeffer

Richard Andrew x64 wrote:

The difficult we do right away...
...the impossible takes slightly longer.

Miracles by appointment only? :)

If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack. --Winston Churchill

Jorgen Andersson

I've already done that. Twice. My wife helped.

Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello

Gary Wheeler

Let's just hope that we're not the interstellar equivalent of a paper-tape backup.

Software Zen: delete this;

newton saber

CDP1802 wrote:

Hopefully such a massive and undeliberate mutation will not be able to survive.

That's very insensitive to the massive and undeliberate mutations out here. Very insensitive, indeed. :((

newton saber

Jörgen Andersson wrote:

I've already done that.

Best and most true answer of all. I guess you are officially a "Scientist". Probably of the mad variety. :D And, by mad, I mean completely lunar.

dandy72

Richard Andrew x64 wrote:

Then it's only a matter of time before the NSA puts spyware into our DNA!!

The whackjobs are probably thinking that's the whole point of GM food.

Mark_Wallace

If they were aiming at the thirtieth anniversary of this[^], they missed it by about seven months.

I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!

enhzflep

Uh-huh. And several months ago a band pledged to release an albumn encoded using it. At one recent event, a 12 second clip was encoded and the resultant DNA put into a soap suspension. Audience members were then asked to blow bubbles using the soap so that each of them could leave carrying the music on their skin. Gee we humans can be so incredibly self-indulgent. Musical DNA soap, $300,000 lab-'grown' beef burgers, tourist trips into space. ;sigh; http://www.popsci.com.au/science/band-will-release-album-in-dna,398158[^] http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/music-of-the-spheres[^] As for the proposition you consider - here's some reading if you're up for it. Origin and Evolution of DNA and DNA Replication Machineries[^] Spoiler: DNA (is believed to be and is accepted as being something that) was created here, on earth.

"When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down 'happy'. They told me I didn't understand the assignment, and I told them they didn't understand life." - John Lennon

Member 10707677

I think it may be a trinary (+0-) system with significant null states.

The difficult may take time, the impossible a little longer.

Member 10707677

I think it may be a trinary (+0-) system with significant null states.

The difficult may take time, the impossible a little longer.

Daniel Pfeffer

A DNA codon consists of 3 base-4 digits (each digit may be one of A, C, G, or T), giving a total of 4^3 or 64 possible values. I fail to see how you could represent 64 states in trinary without some "forbidden" values.

If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack. --Winston Churchill