Harvard Can Backup Your DNA! :D

Preseserve your stuff!

Can't wait for they to develop an Animus like in Assassins Creed!

Forget that hard drive humming inside your computer – the most efficient memory storage device on the planet might be locked up in each and every cell in your body. Scientists have been chasing down the idea of DNA memory storage for years now, and a team from Harvard may have finally broken the idea wide open.

According to a report out of Harvard Medical School, a research team has exceeded the previous limits of DNA storage by about 1,000 times – meaning they were able to encode researcher George Church’s book onto a space the size of a thumbnail some 70 billion times. DNA storage works, in essence, just like regular binary storage, only the bases (TGAC) stand for a different value (T and G =1, A and C = 0). You can read  stored data like you would read a normal genome — not the quickest way to read, but getting quicker every day. The result is a method of storing data so dense that it makes most modern tech seem like wasted space.

The team estimates that the every piece of digital information humankind produces in a year could be stored in about four grams of DNA.
Since DNA takes so much longer to write and read than other, more accessible methods, Church thinks that it would best used for giant, long-term archives –- say, blanket the entire world in video cameras and only go into them when you really need to figure something out. His example is problematic in various ways, but hey, he’s a geneticist, not an ACLU lawyer.

Theoretically, DNA in living tissue could be used to store information as well, but only for a very short period. So don’t look forward to keeping your schedule in your skin any time soon.

The results will be published in the Aug. 17 issue of Science.
Additional info from  Extremetech.

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