
Scientists store digital images in DNA and retrieve them perfectly - victorbojica
http://www.washington.edu/news/2016/04/07/uw-team-stores-digital-images-in-dna-and-retrieves-them-perfectly/
======
jergosh
I wasn't directly involved but the research group I'm part of did some earlier
work mentioned in this paper (ref. 10) and I would be happy to answer any
questions people may have.

~~~
panic
This is really interesting stuff! One of the potential applications they call
out is long-term data storage. How do you know that the stored data will
actually last hundreds of years?

~~~
skosuri
Also not part of this study, but an earlier one (ref 6). Basically DNA has
been recovered from corpses that are thousands of years old. If stored
properly, it is at least extrapolated to last up to millions of years [1].

1\.
[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201411378/fu...](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201411378/full)

------
tomkinstinch
This is nice follow-on work to what was done by George Church and team in
2012:

[http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2012/08/15/scien...](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2012/08/15/science.1226355)

[http://wyss.harvard.edu/viewpressrelease/93/writing-the-
book...](http://wyss.harvard.edu/viewpressrelease/93/writing-the-book-in-dna)

~~~
agumonkey
Church encoding

------
woodruffw
I wonder what access times are like.

------
dang
See also
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11454094](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11454094).

------
Lramseyer
It's all fun and games until this DNA storage downloads a virus!

------
visarga
I'm off to NPM to post "dna-fs". Storage capacity is huge but read/write
latency is on the order of days.

------
msane
This is awe inspiring.

------
sorokod
Basic smartphone as a unit of measure?

------
known
Brilliant

------
teddyh
“I’ll just keep writing over my junk DNA for storage.”

[http://dresdencodak.com/2009/07/12/fabulous-
prizes/](http://dresdencodak.com/2009/07/12/fabulous-prizes/)

