People keep using science to expand our horizons. From the automobile, to penicillin, to Mars landers, we’ve used science to develop some cool stuff. We’ve even spoken in this space about quantum computing. Now, what if I told you we can store data in bacteria? No joke, it turns out we can. This concept was explored recently by scientists studying E. coli.
These bacteria produce a good deal of plasma. It turns this can be altered by adjusting the electrical current going through this plasma. The current has a binary pattern to it and what the current does is not just cause the E. coli to produce more plasma, it also imprints its pattern on the cells themselves. Scientists did this with CRISPR arrays, originally developed as part of the Human Genome Project when the millennium was young. If you are wondering what these scientists encoded on the bacteria, it was something pretty simple, the phrase ‘Hello, world’. That may not seem like a whole lot but every major development starts with a simple experiment. Remember, ENIAC, the first computer, was big enough to fill a large room. Now a handheld device contains many times the computing power of that behemoth.
Research in this field has been going on for years, driven by predictions that our ability to store data will soon be exceeded by the amount of data we are generating in the near future. Recognizing that there is a massive amount of data stored in a DNA strand, scientists have been working to see if it could be altered to store data. This new study from Columbia University represents the latest development in the process of learning to make organic computers. While we aren’t there yet, Columbia researchers show that electricity could be a vital component in turning bacteria into hard drives. One of the most exciting aspects of this research is that it looks like the bacteria can actually pass on its data to offspring. That means two things. One, it should be possible to duplicate entire drives worth of data by just growing it. Two, it means that data could be stored virtually indefinitely as it is passed down through multiple generations of bacteria.
The implications of this developing technology are staggering. There is the possibility of growing storage devices that are incredibly small with insane levels of capacity yet run on a minimum of electricity and could also have back-ups stored in a literal petri dish. This could open up more third world countries to technology, making it possible to make use of cutting edge technology in areas of the world where there is no infrastructure.
And just for fun, let your imagination run wild for a minute. Remember The Matrix and the way they could download any information they needed into their brains in a few moments? What if that were actually possible? What if we could find a way to store all the accumulated knowledge of humanity in our brains and access it whenever we want? Yes, that’s pretty out there but…what if? Sure, it would be prohibitively expensive for all but a few. At least at first. Technology has a way of becoming more widely available at a cheaper price over time. Think about flat screen TVs. When they first came out, they were north of $5000. Now you can pick one up for $500 that has better resolution, is twice the size, and streams content straight from the internet. There is every reason to think that the kind of biotech being imagined will follow a similar path.
How can you help make that happen? One of the many kinds of data that you can choose to share through TARTLE and our data marketplace is your genome. By sharing that with researchers at universities and businesses you can provide them with the information they need to build the technology that will take the next step in making the impossible not just real, but common.
What’s your data worth? Sign up and join the TARTLE Marketplace with this link here.
