Now we would be able to store millions of our data in DNA and keep it forever!
Human beings are producing data at an extraordinary rate. According to data statistics, around 16 zettabytes data is produced every year. If this rate continues, by 2025, we would be producing 160 zettabytes of data every year. To store this enormous data, very denser memory is required. Scientists have found solution for it.
DNA can store all of the world’s data in very compact way. DNA can store 215 million gigabytes in its one gram. Data can be stored for hundreds of thousands of years. DNA would not degrade over time like CDs and cassettes. The method of storing data in DNA is long lasting and can’t become outdated.
We all know that data centers require lot of space and use huge electricity which is nearly 2% of total electricity. On the other hand, DNA molecules can store the information million times more efficiently. The process converts ones and zeroes of digital data into four units of DNA i.e. adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine.
“It takes $1 and one hour to copy a tube of DNA,” says Ms Leproust-chief executive at Twist Bioscience. “It may sound high — but if you have in a tube the equivalent of a data centre, you can copy an entire data centre for $1 and one hour. That is absolutely unheard of.”
This method is not new. The scientists having been storing digital data in DNA since 2012. They encoded a book which had 52,000 words in thousands of small pieces of DNA, using strands of DNA’s four letter alphabet of A, G, T and C to encode zeros and ones of the digital file. This method was ineffective and the storage capacity was very limited because they could store only 1.28 petabytes per gram of DNA that is only more than half of the capacity of DNA.
Recently scientists were successful to increase this limit. They first converted the digital file into binary code of 1s and 0s and then they compressed this binary code into a single file. After compressing they split this data again into short pieces of binary code. Then they repacked these pieces into small droplets and finally assembled them in the proper order. This process is done through new algorithm called DNA Fountain.
[Whether you are] a virus, a cucumber, an elephant, Donald Trump. You store the most important information in your life in your DNA.
Yaniv Erlich, Columbia University
Scientists used modern technology to decode this data, known as DNA sequencing. The sequences were fed into computer. The computer translated the genetic code back into binary code. The researchers were then able to access the original file without any errors and make unlimited number of copies.
The scientists are currently planning to 10,000 original images from worldwide and then store them in DNA for indefinite period of time. DNA acts as revolutionary storage medium that lasts forever and is reliable.
Cost is the main obstacle. Although it is cheap to read DNA sequences, writing DNA is really very expensive at the moment. It costs $100,000 to store 12mb of data. This cost will ultimately go down with the passage of time. The next challenge of the scientists is to process the data directly in DNA without need of converting images back to their electronic form.
sources:
1- https://www.ft.com/content/45ea22b0-cec2-11e7-947e-f1ea5435bcc7
2- http://www.futurity.org/memories-in-dna-project-1663072/
3- https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610071/storing-data-in-dna-is-a-lot-easier-than-getting-it-back-out/
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215 millions GB in one gram??? It is mind blowing fact dear very informative blog indeed.
Thanks a lot for sharing it.
About how many sandy grains are there on Cuba Cbana!
Who wants to count?
Hahaha gave me a lot of laughter the comment of Yaniv Erlich, Columbia University "[If you are] a virus, a cucumber, an elephant, Donald Trump, it stores in your DNA the most important information of your life." at the same time very impressive good friend publication
wow .. thats cool .. even i cant believe it :) thanks for sharing .. keep it up :)@munawar1235
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Apart from the write cost, there's some engineering issues you may be interested in. Besides error checking/correction, there's persistent storage. DNA is fairly stable when you compare it to things like proteins and RNA, but it still gets unhappy at room temp if left out long enough (even if embedded on cellulose or silicon). So far as I know -80 C is still the standard for super long term storage, which is a huge energy and reliability cost. Propagating it as a clone is asking for all sorts of issues with maintenance and mutations.
Also, it should be understood that this would be a high capacaity, but also high latency, storage method. More like a tape drive than a usb stick.