https://scitechdaily.com/enzymatic-synthesis-our-dna-is-becoming-the-worlds-tiniest-hard-drive/
Researchers propose faster method for recording data to DNA, showing promise in fields of digital data storage, neuron recording.
Our genetic code is millions of times more efficient at storing data than existing solutions, which are costly and use immense amounts of energy and space. In fact, we could get rid of hard drives and store all the digital data on the planet within a couple hundred pounds of DNA.
Using DNA as a high-density data storage medium holds the potential to forge breakthroughs in biosensing and biorecording technology and next-generation digital storage, but researchers haven’t been able to overcome inefficiencies that would allow the technology to scale.
Now, researchers at Northwestern University propose a new method for recording information to DNA that takes minutes, rather than hours or days, to complete. The team used a novel enzymatic system to synthesize DNA that records rapidly changing environmental signals directly into DNA sequences, a method the paper’s senior author said could change the way scientists study and record neurons inside the brain.
The paper’s senior author, Northwestern engineering professor Keith E.J. Tyo, said his lab was interested in leveraging DNA’s natural abilities to create a new solution for storing data.
“Nature is good at copying DNA, but we really wanted to be able to write DNA from scratch,” Tyo said. “The ex vivo (outside the body) way to do this involves a slow, chemical synthesis. Our method is much cheaper to write information because the enzyme that synthesizes the DNA can be directly manipulated. State-of-the-art intracellular recordings are even slower because they require the mechanical steps of protein expression in response to signals, as opposed to our enzymes which are all expressed ahead of time and can continuously store information.”
Tyo, a professor in chemical and biological engineering in the McCormick School of Engineering, is a member of the Center for Synthetic Biology, and studies microbes and their mechanisms for sensing environmental changes and responding to them quickly.
With more potential for scalability and accuracy, TURTLES could offer the basis for tools that catapult brain research forward. According to Alec Callisto, also a co-first author and graduate student in the Tyo lab, researchers can only study a tiny fraction of a brain’s neurons with today’s technology, and even then, there are limits on what they know they do. By placing recorders inside all the cells in the brain, scientists could map responses to stimuli with single-cell resolution across many (million) neurons.
“If you look at how current technology scales over time, it could be decades before we can even record an entire cockroach brain simultaneously with existing technologies – let alone the tens of billions of neurons in human brains,” Callisto said. “So that’s something we’d really like to accelerate.”
Outside the body, the TURTLES system also could be used for a variety of solutions to address the explosive growth in data storage needs (up to 175 zettabytes by 2025).
It’s particularly good for long term archival data applications such as storing closed-circuit security footage, which the team refers to as data that you “write once and read never,” but need to have accessible in the event an incident occurs. With technology developed by engineers, hard drives and disk drives that hold years of beloved camera memories also could be replaced by bits of DNA.
This is some creepy shit.
If you didn't read anything from the cited article, read the following quote:
Our genetic code is millions of times more efficient at storing data than existing solutions, which are costly and use immense amounts of energy and space. In fact, we could get rid of hard drives and store all the digital data on the planet within a couple hundred pounds of DNA.
Remember when the concept of merging of humans with technology was the thing of 80's sci-fi movies?
The next evolutionary leap for mankind is to morph with machines into a race of cyborgs.
Science is the new religion, and scientists are the new gods.
Not only have we moved into the post-theological society that 19th century philosophers like Nietzsche predicted (ie "God is dead!"), but humanity is also in the midst of a biological evolution as the result of a technological revolution as well.
It's important to implement the systemic narrative into this transition. It's not a coincidence that "climate change" is in the news on a daily basis. This is the catalyst that will bypass the ethics of using DNA as hard drives. In other words, the moral high ground is saving the planet. What could be unethical about that, right? Just like with vaccinations. It's presented as a sacrifice for your fellow man. "Do your part, comrade!"
The important thing to know is that when these scientists are questioned, they will say that they aren't wanting to use the actual DNA of humans as hard drives, but that they are wanting to replicate human DNA outside of the body and use that as hard drives. Even though they explicitly said they want to accelerate the ability to map the human brain by inserting recorders into all the cells of the brain and record the activity.
Ultimately it all comes down to trust.
It's hard to process the power of this technology and not be somewhat concerned. If they have the power to hijack human DNA and use it has digital hard drives, what don't they have the technology to do? Furthermore, what are the ethical limitations from stopping them from using CRISPR to create a slave race of humans that are hard drives used as surveillance systems for Big Brother? A cure for climate change, population control and the ultimate, obedient citizen. Sounds like something elites would rub their hands together and salivate over.
All that microchip and 5G talk doesn't sound all that crazy now, does it?
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