Evolution of information storage ?

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Does it make any sense if I were to say that Harry potter is in my genes ? Of course, it doesn't. But hang on, researchers are always a few steps ahead of us. Researchers at Harvard have found a way of storing information in the DNA. Crazy, right ?


(Source: http://blog.longnow.org/)

According to the article, a single gram of DNA can store 455 billion GB. (Yeah!!). Average human body has around 10^13 cells and each cell has around 6 x 10^-12 g of DNA. (Source). So a quick calculation would inform you that 27,300 Billion GB of data can be stored. And in case you are wondering whether it is even possible to store data in DNA, that is the whole purpose of a DNA, to store information about our body.

The researchers were able to store a book in the DNA, with just 5.27 megs of data. simple math can tell you, it is possible to store the world's entire data using this technology. (and forever too!). I can't help but correlate this to a sci -fi idea that babies in the future would be embedded with a chip that stores all the information for them. Isn't this exceedingly similar to that (minus the chip).

This also brings the question, how do we access this huge data effectively ? It is a separate topic in itself, but to give an overview, the information is stored within the chemical structure.(More information here). So, much of the job is already done by the manner in which DNA organizes the genetic information and accesses them. The only challenge is to make sure that the information that is stored in the DNA is error free and to have mechanisms to identify erroneous data.

Source:
http://www.webpronews.com/you-may-soon-be-storing-books-and-music-in-dna...

Other reference
http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-total-mass-of-DNA-in-the-average-65kg-h...
http://www.nchpeg.org/bssr/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=86:how-i...


PS: How i wish i can be a test subject for their research and get something embedded in my DNA :D