DNA Offers Cavernous Storage Option

Don’t you just hate it that technology moves at such a pace where you were once told that 640k would be more than enough for everybody, but it has been pitifully overtaken a long, long time ago. Even when it comes to storage options, we have moved from the 5.25” floppy disc to a 3.25” floppy, onwards to CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs with ever expanding hard drive sizes. It seems that your DNA is going to supercede all these, as it is capable of storing information from a million CDs, taking up an amount of space that is no bigger than your little finger. In terms of longevity, it is also able to keep your data safe for centuries, or in theory, at least.

Researchers claimed that they managed to store the entire 154 Shakespeare sonnets, a photo, a scientific paper, and a 26-second sound clip from Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, into a barely visible bit of DNA located in a test tube. It might take a decade for DNA to become a feasible mass market storage device, although we do wonder just whether we can carry our data in our bodies down the road.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Gadgets
Tags: dna