DNA as Digital Storage

This was quite an interesting article I read earlier;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21145163

How one gram of this DNA can hold 500 of the biggest drives today (4TB drives), amazing to think you would need just need one gram of this for about 80,000-120,000 Bluray films (about 15-25GB), don't think that many films have been made around the World

 

Hum, very interesting, what they have said is that the DNA they used was synthetic, or at least created for the purpose, they also said that if that DNA did find its way into you, me, or some other creature, the body of which would find that the coding was not the natural coding it needs so that molecule would be absorbed and lost.
What they did not say is if there is a possibility of a normal DNA molecule carrying the natural code, could be used to add the digital code yet still maintain its original function and natural code, therefore be kept within a living being. It would make it a cinch to carry large amounts of information in a secret way, the stuff of spy stories eh?

Nev.

 

Thanks Woody. Very interesting article.
We will also be implanted with RFID Chips soon.

 

Hey Nev, about the carrying it in our DNA, I'm not sure if you watch QI on the BBC here, on an episode of that they asked the panelists how old they were they said their ages (they were buzzed and all docked points) as our real ages are between 0-7 years simply because our bodies change and replace all blood cells and stuff like that, so not sure how possible it would be in living people like us, probably not on that basis unless we wanted to change the storage space every year

 

Some odd bits don't change or if they do it is a much longer time scale, tooth enamel being one, but how you could get information into the DNA of that, and at a later date read it, just don't ask. The dentists drill is bad enough.
However, for short term storage such as smuggling data out of the country, that is where my thoughts were going.

Nev.