Microsoft device stores digital info as DNA
Microsoft is on its way to replacing data centers with DNA. The company and researchers from the University of Washington have successfully automated the process to translate digital information into DNA and back to bits. They now have the first, full end-to-end automated DNA storage device. And while there's room for improvement, Microsoft hopes this proof-of-concept will advance DNA storage technology.
In its first run, the $10,000 prototype converted "HELLO" into DNA. The device first encoded the bits (1's and 0's) into DNA sequences (A's, C's, T's, G's). It then synthesized the DNA and stored it as a liquid. Next, the stored DNA was read by a DNA sequencer. Finally, the decoding software translated the sequences back into bits. The 5-byte message took 21 hours to convert back and forth, but the researchers have already identified a way to reduce the time required by 10 to 12 hours. They've also suggested ways to reduce the cost by several thousand dollars.
Microsoft just booted up the first "DNA drive" for storing data
Why now? It's a good time for companies involved in DNA storage to show off their stuff. The National Intelligence Agency's IARPA program is getting ready to hand out tens of millions toward radical new molecular information storage schemes.
Oxford Nanopore Technology is involved.
Demonstration of End-to-End Automation of DNA Data Storage (open, DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-41228-8) (DX)
Related: Computer Operating System and Short Movie Stored On DNA
New Technique Could Speed Up DNA Synthesis
Biohacker Injects Himself With Religious Texts Converted to DNA
Related Stories
Humanity may soon generate more data than hard drives or magnetic tape can handle, a problem that has scientists turning to nature's age-old solution for information-storage -- DNA.
...
Erlich and his colleague Dina Zielinski, an associate scientist at NYGC, chose six files to encode, or write, into DNA: a full computer operating system, an 1895 French film, "Arrival of a train at La Ciotat," a $50 Amazon gift card, a computer virus, a Pioneer plaque and a 1948 study by information theorist Claude Shannon.They compressed the files into a master file, and then split the data into short strings of binary code made up of ones and zeros. Using an erasure-correcting algorithm called fountain codes, they randomly packaged the strings into so-called droplets, and mapped the ones and zeros in each droplet to the four nucleotide bases in DNA: A, G, C and T. The algorithm deleted letter combinations known to create errors, and added a barcode to each droplet to help reassemble the files later.
In all, they generated a digital list of 72,000 DNA strands, each 200 bases long, and sent it in a text file to a San Francisco DNA-synthesis startup, Twist Bioscience, that specializes in turning digital data into biological data. Two weeks later, they received a vial holding a speck of DNA molecules.
To retrieve their files, they used modern sequencing technology to read the DNA strands, followed by software to translate the genetic code back into binary. They recovered their files with zero errors, the study reports. (In this short demo, Erlich opens his archived operating system on a virtual machine and plays a game of Minesweeper to celebrate.)
They also demonstrated that a virtually unlimited number of copies of the files could be created with their coding technique by multiplying their DNA sample through polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and that those copies, and even copies of their copies, and so on, could be recovered error-free.
It would be fun to encode the Library of Congress or the entire library of the *AA's in DNA, patch them into a strain of dandelions, and release them into the wild.
Additional coverage at:
New technique could help scientists create a gene in just 1 day
Creating a new gene in a single day could soon be possible, thanks to a new technique that mimics the way the body copies its own DNA. Though the technology needs to clear a few more hurdles, it could one day let researchers speedily rewrite microbe genes, enabling them to synthesize new medicines and fuels on the fly.
[...] Church says the new approach is not quite ready to dethrone conventional DNA synthesis. So far, the group has made oligos only 10 bases long. And there are still a few writing problems, as the approach was only 98% accurate at writing DNA in the desired sequence, below the 99% accuracy of the traditional approach. "It's cool for a first demonstration," Palluk says. "But it's not quite there yet."
In order to write oligos up to 1000 bases long, the approach will likely need to be 99.9% accurate. If it gets there, Church says it could help revolutionize not just synthetic biology's efforts to write and test new genes, but also enable efforts to write massive libraries of data in DNA to create a compact archive the firehoses of information coming from giant science projects such as astronomy surveys, which could then be fished out and read out later.
Also at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
De novo DNA synthesis using polymerase-nucleotide conjugates (DOI: 10.1038/nbt.4173) (DX)
High School Student Injects The Book Of Genesis Into His Body
A student has injected himself with the Book of Genesis and the surah Ar-Ra'd (part of the Qur'an) because he "wondered whether it would be possible".
Adrien Locatelli, a high school student in Grenoble, France, decided to inject himself with several religious texts.
"Recent studies have reported that it is possible to convert any type of information into DNA for the purpose of storage," he wrote, publishing his initial results on the Open Science Framework.
"Since it is possible to convert digital information into DNA, I wondered whether it would be possible to convert a religious text into DNA and to inject it in a living being."
Seems like a good origin story for a religious superhero.
Related: Man Who Attempted DIY Gene Therapy Found Dead
Biohacker With Implanted Card Escapes Conviction
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 23 2019, @11:28PM
HellopleaseupdatetoWindows10thx
(Score: 4, Funny) by Nerdfest on Saturday March 23 2019, @11:29PM (6 children)
Microsoft playing around with DNA. I'm glad there's no way *that* will end badly for humankind.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 23 2019, @11:56PM (3 children)
While 'kinda funny'. Honestly your body would probably see it as an invader and then attack it and discard it.
(Score: 5, Funny) by SomeGuy on Sunday March 24 2019, @03:25AM (2 children)
Nope, now it is an integrated part of your DNA and can not be uninstalled because it is now an essential DNA component. Don't think of disabling it either, because then you won't be able to interact with the rest of the world, and it is mandatory in order to get any work done. You will need to have your DNA updated every Tuesday, and if you don't then you are susceptible to new viruses and will be publicly shamed for not being up to date becauseyoucantbetoosafethinkofthechildrenpollywannacracker even if the DNA update disables important parts of your body.
Of course, if it were Apple iDNA then all the consumertards would be lined up for miles to get it without even understanding what it is.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 24 2019, @06:07AM
Great. SystemDNA.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday March 24 2019, @07:43AM
Oh, and don't even think about having children without buying a license first. Otherwise it's a copyright violation. Note that gene functionality may be restricted if you can't prove that you've got a valid license for your genes.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 24 2019, @12:32PM
Microsoft infects DNA with virus.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday March 25 2019, @04:21PM
Skynet has to come from somewhere. We just thought it was a computer program that evolved into an AI. When in fact it was a Strong AI born from Microsoft DNA.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Saturday March 23 2019, @11:32PM (2 children)
When your DNA Blue screens, wat do? Guessing they're 10-15 years away from this, and insurance says I'll prolly be dead in 10-15 years. Sucks, I'd really like to be around to see how they fuck this one up.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 4, Funny) by aristarchus on Saturday March 23 2019, @11:55PM (1 child)
DNA Bluescreen of DEATH! Literally! Death! No, I mean actual, like, literally, not literally as figurative, death. You can just hear the EMS saying, "Have you tried turning him off and turning him on again?"
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday March 24 2019, @03:14PM
https://youtu.be/_95XVJgXsaE?t=79 [youtu.be]
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by rylyeh on Saturday March 23 2019, @11:42PM (1 child)
Still, M$FT could help this potentially much cheaper/green technology to become competitive.
"a vast crenulate shell wherein rode the grey and awful form of primal Nodens, Lord of the Great Abyss."
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 24 2019, @12:01AM
WTF is green about this? It uses dangerous chemicals to make DNA that's 30 orders of magnitude slower than electronics and required hugely more energy to read and write. This is PR stunt, nothing more.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday March 24 2019, @12:03AM (2 children)
Doesn't sound all to useful at the moment, not enough for a proper Johnny Mnemonic as of yet.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday March 24 2019, @02:43AM (1 child)
It's not even remotely useful, even if it is a cool science trick, and there's no hope of scaling it to anything useful in the foreseeable future.
A much more practical way to store a few bytes in DNA is to train a dog to bark the appropriate number of times, just to put this into perspective.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday March 24 2019, @11:04AM
> It's not even remotely useful
Agreed, come back when you can fit an EULA in it.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 24 2019, @01:10AM
Is this how you write the bible on the head of pin?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 24 2019, @01:24AM
About the same time as a Windows update.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Sunday March 24 2019, @04:14AM (3 children)
So what exactly is the use case for DNA storage? It is theoretically less dense than digital storage (single electrons vs entire molecules), it can't possibly ever be cheaper to read/write, it's not easier to copy, it doesn't self-reproduce (and even if we're able to reach that stage, it's probably a very bad idea for many reasons).
Maybe injecting child porn into Ajit Pai's DNA as a prank?
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday March 24 2019, @07:50AM
Why do you think Microsoft would want to make their stuff easier to copy?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by RandomFactor on Sunday March 24 2019, @03:10PM (1 child)
Fair question, and slow too in comparison, but it's not there to replace your SSD it seems:
https://www.wired.com/story/the-rise-of-dna-data-storage/ [wired.com]
That last makes it especially interesting.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Sunday March 24 2019, @03:39PM
so...
we should investigate our junk DNA for sequences like: "T Rex RULEZ!!1!" and "Trilobite wuz h3r3" ?
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday March 24 2019, @07:38AM
5 bytes? Lame [youtube.com].
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday March 24 2019, @08:07AM
Terrorist uploads a file that 'hust happens' to be stored using the gene sequence of ebola. Ebola sequences leak from damaged devices and eventually through random dumb luck it eventually finds itself inside a host cell. It begins reproducing like the genome of any virus that finds itself inside a suitable host cell.
Of course, at 2 bits per hour, we don't have to worry about that just yet.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday March 24 2019, @10:10AM
No one needs more than 3k of DNA.
--Billy-bob Gates.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1) by Rupert Pupnick on Sunday March 24 2019, @11:29AM
What are the projected performance parameters in maturity? Access time? Transfer rates? Storage density per unit mass or volume? Error rates and error correction or detection algorithms? Environmental requirements? Seems like it’s only suitable for archival purposes— why is the intelligence community interested? And there’s a looming data storage crisis? Really? Seems like individual users together with market forces should be able to manage that just fine...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 24 2019, @10:14PM
.. their patched version said: "HELLO\0"