New Technique Stores Data in Bacteria

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Talking Bacteria, and How to Shut Them Up

Artificial DNA with encoded information can be added to the genome of common bacteria, thus preserving the data. The technique was developed at Keio University Institute for Advanced Biosciences and Keio University Shonan Fujisawa Campus. If you think those USB flash memory "thumbdrives" are small, check this data storage out.

According to researchers, up to 100 bits of data can be attached to each organism. Scientists successfully encoded and attached the phrase "e=mc2 1905" to the DNA of bacillus subtilis, a common soil bacteria.

Bacillus subtilis also creates extra copies of the data, inserting it in different places in its genome, further safeguarding the data. That's "multiple backup copies" for those of you who have lost data in the past.

The first time I read about this idea was in an excellent series of fantasy novels by Barbara Hambly. In her 1982 Darwath trilogy, she writes about how wizards of several thousand years ago succeeded in tying information to the DNA of selected individuals. In the story, several people from 1980's California find themselves transported across the Void to another planet and the Realm of Darwath. They face a deadly species of queerly magical beings - the Dark - who destroyed civilization thousands of years ago. Everything that was made of paper (like books and records) was burned to stave off attacks by the Dark. Tying memories to a few suitable bloodlines (DNA) was the only way to preserve a record (information) of that period that would endure.

Don't miss these other bacteria-related developments:

Via Keio University Develops New Technology to Preserve Data in Bacteria.

(This Science Fiction in the News story used with permission from Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction.)

Bill Christensen
Bill Christensen catalogues the inventions, technology and ideas of science fiction writers at his website, Technovelgy. He is a contributor to Live Science.