TIDBIT: USING DNA AS DATA STORAGE

Apropos of today's main blog, a reader (who wishes to remain completely anonymous, hence I don't mention this individual's initials) sent this along:

Scientists ‘program’ living bacteria to store data

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Joseph P. Farrell

Joseph P. Farrell has a doctorate in patristics from the University of Oxford, and pursues research in physics, alternative history and science, and "strange stuff". His book The Giza DeathStar, for which the Giza Community is named, was published in the spring of 2002, and was his first venture into "alternative history and science".

18 Comments

  1. Maatkare3114 on January 21, 2021 at 12:58 pm

    “DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created.”
    ― Bill Gates, The Road Ahead

    Scientists have planned this for a while.
    2017 : https://www.kurzweilai.net/how-to-program-dna-like-we-do-computers#:~:text=Researchers%20at%20The%20University%20of,cells%20%E2%80%94%20the%20kind%20of%20computation
    How to program DNA like we do computers

    https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/11233/20170329/human-cell-hack-and-reprogram-by-scientists-using-computer-codes-changes-its-behavior.htm
    Human cell behavior can now be changed using computer codes. Scientists proved that human cells can be somehow reprogrammed.



    • Maison on January 24, 2021 at 11:57 am

      Did Gates say this in his 1st edition of the book 25 years ago or the more recent version? Just wondering when he knew this about DNA.



  2. roastedandsalted on January 20, 2021 at 3:57 am

    There once was an engineer that had Rockwell western bronze. To improve the aesthetics he drilled a whole in the bit and hung a balance scale where he then placed plastic purple and green grapes.



    • roastedandsalted on January 20, 2021 at 10:35 am

      sorry it was a Remington.



  3. marcos toledo on January 19, 2021 at 9:43 pm

    I remember listening to radio drama when I lived in New York which dealt with using animals to store data music was what was being stored.



  4. Roger on January 19, 2021 at 9:00 pm

    Cells have to divide and replicate themselves and even then eventually die so it’s not a practical long term data medium. But more likely they are exploring ways to use biology at a cellular level to make extremely small on/off switches that will still work after the cellular frame work dies. Perhaps using organically bound metals to bind in certain useful orders useful in engineering super small circuitry that machines currently can’t achieve. Or some such experimentation on achieving more advanced nano-scale engineering using super small biological processes as the medium of construction.



    • Robert Barricklow on January 19, 2021 at 9:18 pm

      Yes,
      and also going full-bore
      into epigenetics lore.



  5. FiatLux on January 19, 2021 at 8:12 pm

    If human civilization doesn’t reign in these mad scientists before they destroy life on this planet (or distort it beyond recognition), Mother Nature will. It won’t be pretty.



  6. PiPoe on January 19, 2021 at 1:22 pm

    “They inserted a series of genes into E. coli that enabled the cells to increase plasmid expression in response to an electric voltage .” (emphasis added)

    “Wang says it is still early days for the storage of data in living organisms.” I highly doubt the validity of this statement.



  7. OrigensChild on January 19, 2021 at 8:56 am

    So, are we saying that the fundamental premise of the movies and the game of Underworld is true? The premise that blood and cells contain the collective memories of what can be known in the life experiences of the person’s life recorded in stark relief? If they are storing data in cells, these scientists must have seized on the idea from some general observation. The best way to verify the premise is to perform experiments such as these using information in a controlled manner. It also becomes a template of action for altering the memories of individuals at the cellular level–making all reprogramming methods presently used obsolete. I can see the applications for these techniques now–and some of them are not pleasant. I’m not concerned as much as whether they can do this, but I am very much concerned if they *know* they can do this and have been successful installing them in high places. (Now, I need to remove this tinfoil cap. My thoughts are beginning to leak again. Oh,, look, it looks like swiss cheese now. How did that happen?)



    • Robert Barricklow on January 19, 2021 at 6:32 pm

      The first baby steps
      of Men In Black’s Memory Wipes.
      What the movie purposely left out
      were the memory implants; after the wipe.

      Goes along right along w/the
      Twentieth-Worst Century’s
      Fake theme of things.
      Now, Iof-t; instead of IoT
      internet of fake things;
      instead: of internet of things

      Now add: fake memories to this new century.
      Gives Bob Hope’s yesteryear classic,
      “Thanks For the Memories”.
      new meaning[and I do mean, mean].
      Fake Gods, fake living things, fake spirits, fake education, fake sincerity, fake democracy. fake republic, fake healthcare[new transgender head of senior health post. Apparently too many seniors in nursing homes died under her care. Another Bidet appointee rewarded for her good numbers]. Well, lost track of the too many ways to fake it; and make it in the new fake 21[worst] century.



  8. goshawks on January 19, 2021 at 6:28 am

    Another version of this:
    https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/01/electricity-and-crispr-used-to-write-data-to-bacterial-dna/

    It will be interesting what we find as we go into our ‘non-coding’ DNA, bit-by-bit :
    https://i1.wp.com/www.tor.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/thechase5.jpg?resize=475%2C363&type=vertical&quality=100
    [ST:TNG “The Chase”]



    • Robert Barricklow on January 19, 2021 at 7:05 pm

      Yes Goshawks,
      read about this in a book about the coming Chinese authoritarian surveillance technocracy being exported worldwide.
      We Have Been Harmonized:
      Life In China’s Surveillance State
      by Kai Strittmatter, Sept 1, 2020



    • Richard on January 19, 2021 at 7:36 pm

      There are those bits and pieces of DNA some quacks have called “junk DNA” that are concerning. They’re a large quantity that can be re-asserted.

      “The Chase,” yields a favorable outcome per written scripts. The Dr Monroe’s of certain wealthy labs suggest a sinister ill conceived outcome to beware.



    • Roger on January 19, 2021 at 9:08 pm

      If this field of experimentation can be use in a negative way then it will be used as such on a grand scale by the usual suspects. Too bad our technology has outpaced our maturity and morality and thus will destroy us rather than lift us up to higher conscious and cultural levels.



  9. NR on January 19, 2021 at 6:05 am

    A Blade Runner scenario looks increasingly bright and optimistic these days.



    • OrigensChild on January 19, 2021 at 8:56 am

      Hilarious, but so very true.



    • marcos toledo on January 19, 2021 at 9:39 pm

      NR may I recommend the novel on which it based on Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep.



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