In the spirit of STNG's "The Chase": DNA data storage

RAMA · Jan 26, 2013

http://www.kurzweilai.net/how-to-store-the-worlds-data-on-dna

Hard disks are expensive and require a constant supply of electricity, while even the best “no-power” archiving materials such as magnetic tape degrade within a decade. This is a growing problem in the life sciences, where massive volumes of data — including DNA sequences — make up the fabric of the scientific record.

“We already know that DNA is a robust way to store information because we can extract it from wooly mammoth bones, which date back tens of thousands of years, and make sense of it,” explains Nick Goldman of EMBL-EBI. “It’s also incredibly small, dense and does not need any power for storage, so shipping and keeping it is easy.”

SchwEnt · Jan 26, 2013

Also TNG's "The Drumhead". The Klingon spy was carrying digital info encoded in his amino acids or some such, if I recall correctly.

Timo · Jan 27, 2013

"Broken Bow", too...

However, in general, Trek seems to go for the scifi trope of "crystals" being a powerful no-power data storage medium capable of defying time for aeons. Biological, potentially self-repairing data media are another way to go, but not the preferred one. Although those gel-pack computing aids from VOY might be an experiment on that other path.

Timo Saloniemi

publiusr · Jan 27, 2013

In the spirit of STNG's "The Chase": DNA data storage

RAMA

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SchwEnt

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Timo

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publiusr

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