Althouse: A computer operating system, the 1895 French film, "Arrival of a train at La Ciotat," a $50 Amazon gift card, and a few other things....

March 4, 2017

A computer operating system, the 1895 French film, "Arrival of a train at La Ciotat," a $50 Amazon gift card, and a few other things....

... are all stored in one gram of DNA.

10 comments:

mockturtle said...: I'm not clear why human DNA was used.; 3/4/17, 8:50 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "I'm not clear why human DNA was used."

Run with that and you've got a Stephen King novel.; 3/4/17, 9:25 AM
rhhardin said...: There's the future use for men. Disk drives.; 3/4/17, 9:32 AM
Curious George said...: Hey researchers! You can use that Amazon DNA gift card to purchase "Arrival of a train at La Ciotat" on the Althouse Amazon portal!; 3/4/17, 9:50 AM
Crimso said...: "I'm not clear why human DNA was used."

If by "human DNA" you are referring to the four bases, that's not human DNA. That's DNA from living organisms in general. Other bases exist and could potentially be used, but it's not immediately clear to me that the biochemical steps of the process would allow for other bases. The enzymes that process nucleic acids won't necessarily work with just any base.

It looks as though they chemically synthesized the DNA, but to "read" it the sequencing they used requires enzymes.; 3/4/17, 10:01 AM
khematite said...: Gives new meaning to the expression "It's in his DNA."; 3/4/17, 10:36 AM
dbp said...: It is not Human DNA unless it codes for Human genes. In fact, most proteins we express are almost exactly like those of other Mammals.

But to get to the information content. 1 g of DNA contains about 8 X 10 to the 20th of base pairs. To get 64 bit information, you need three base pairs and while a single copy of DNA can be amplified, it is easier if you have more copies. Divide it all out and you still have almost 3 times 10 to the 18th power of 64 bit "words". An HD movie is about 5 times 10 to the 9th power of bytes, so you should be able to put a billion movies in this amount of DNA.; 3/4/17, 11:22 AM
Jim said...: May I look forward to being detained at the border by Customs while my DNA is searched?; 3/4/17, 12:30 PM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: Is the $50 Amazon gift card supposed to be impressive? 'Cause I'm pretty sure I've already got two or three of those embedded in my DNA right now.; 3/4/17, 3:14 PM
mockturtle said...: OK. I misread the article.; 3/4/17, 6:45 PM