
Data storage on DNA can keep it safe for centuries - unusximmortalis
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/science/data-storage-on-dna-can-keep-it-safe-for-centuries.html
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steve19
Does this work because there is massive redundancy in the DNA soup? So if some
strands of part of strands are contaminated, there are 100s or 1000s
(millions?) of cloned DNA molecules floating around?

Or is a single DNA molecule capable of long term data data storage and
retrieval? I realize of course that scientists pull DNA from long dead things
all the time, but for example there is of course hundreds of trillions of
cells in a large mammal with copies of the DNA.

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wanda
[https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32029178/Science-2012-Ch...](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32029178/Science-2012-Church-1628.pdf)

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ghshephard
It's painful to read the NYT write about something you know about:

 _It would also address a glaring Achilles’ heel at the heart of
microelectronic data storage systems: Magnetic disks, tape and even optical
storage systems safely store information at most for only a handful of
decades._

It's really not a glaring Achilles heel. This is a solved (for the most part)
problem - see [http://www.mdisc.com/](http://www.mdisc.com/) for a product
which can archive your data a reasonable cost for centuries, and _much_ more
conveniently than trying to store/recall from DNA.

Here are some of the endurance tests they put the mdic through -
[http://www.esystor.com/images/China_Lake_Full_Report.pdf](http://www.esystor.com/images/China_Lake_Full_Report.pdf).
I would be interested in seeing how DNA storage stood up to that sort of
testing.

The ability to store data in DNA is cool, and it's neat that the teams are
making progress - but it's important to put the progress into context right
now.

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theandrewbailey
Data integrity is not inherent to optical media, but it apparently is with
DNA. While special archival grade writable DVDs and BluRays exist, people are
cheap, and for the most part will not pay $2+ per disc.

> a product which can archive your data a reasonable cost for centuries, and
> much more conveniently than trying to store/recall from DNA.

If you're going to store media that long, you will also need the equipment to
read data off it in _n_ years/decades/centuries. DNA has been around for a
very long time compared to optical media. The need to read DNA will last much
longer than optical media. In that time, optical drives are likely to become
obsolete and scarce (see the last 5 years), and DNA readers might be extremely
cheap by comparison.

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Myrmornis
Why DNA out of interest, could one imagine any other polymer being chosen for
the purpose? Is the reason:

\- Stability?

\- The dynamics and specificity of ligation between complementary sequences?

\- Alphabet size -- is 4 a good choice?

\- Enzymes exist that can carry out a lot of the necessary operations?

\- Humans have developed a lot of expertise in manipulating DNA?

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ende
All of the above! Dna is very stable (compared to, say, many proteins).. it is
essentially the cell's harddrive, while mRNA is more like the memory. DNA is
able to express complex information through sequences of a small number of
states, is replicated and maintained through a highly conserved set of
molecular machinery throughout life, and the human experience in manipulating
it is approaching that of pushing electrons across silicon boards. The
similarities are quite startling!

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wuschel
I wonder what the failsafe mechanisms are in regard to infection of the
storage medium with fungi/bacteria that might alter the stored information. In
my humble opinion that might a problem that should be considered when it comes
the actual application of the concept.

~~~
ende
Well, the danger of contamination would be in any host vectors used to clone
the DNA. Its conceivable that a virus could infect the host vector and
introduce its own chromosome into the host chromosome, but this probably
wouldn't be a major problem. Any interuption in the encoded data should be
easily detectable, highly unlikely in the first place, and there would be many
copies of the dna. But the actual storage would be dna outside of a cellular
context, in which case ot wouldn't be 'active'. The only dangers in that state
would be water, heat, etc.

