Using Your DNA as a Hard Drive

Using DNA as a hard drive? Its not as crazy as it sounds! Scientists at the European Bioinformatics Institute over in the UK, have actually done it and the results have been impressive. Will this ever become something you can do at home? Anthony has the details!

DNews is a show about the science of everyday life. We post two new videos every day of the week.

Watch More

Subscribe

DNews Twitter

Anthony Carboni Twitter:

Laci Green Twitter

Trace Dominguez Twitter

DNews Facebook

DNews Google+

DNews Website

[ekaterinavalinakova]

I love the concept of DNA storage. Huge storage in compact spaces, a hard drive that does not have to be replaced every 5-10 years because your hard rive is highly unstable and degrades and corruptable easily and quickly.

[lundonclark]

Sony will soon be releasing an updated Bluray player that's compatible with .dna files.

[Seeker]

Guys also can we PLEASE talk about the stock photo @2:54 and like what the subtext of the relationship between those two dudes is? Like, we can assume they work together at the laser factory or whatever, but doesn't it seem like THERE'S SOMETHING THERE? (also lol at the photo we used) -Anthony

[Seeker]

There's not really a set order- some weeks one of us can do more, some weeks the others can. This project is also my main focus right now, while Trace and Laci have other stuff they have to split their time with.

Hopefully it doesn't bug you too much that this is a me-heavy week. :) -Anthony

[rakkadude]

I bet you could do it with lots of different kinds of chemicals.

[andrew_bao]

im looking forward to using teleportation, forcefields, and invisibility technologies in the future, that have already been tested today!

[rynieryarom]

Oh the nostalgia of the intro song. From the future/present of 2017 everything changed

[Seeker]

I don't think so- if you replace your dna with this particular DNA it would be a bad thing, since it's not human DNA, but you could put a lot of data into something small enough to carry on your person without it being a hassle. - Anthony

[Seeker]

Whoops, yes! You're right. At least I was right on the number of people. Sheesh. Dumb mistake. -Anthony

[MrBoomCat]

wow that means i can download evrything and do whatever i whant, yay

[minecraftinalabama]

Can I learn Kung fu like in the matrix?

[ZeldagigafanMatthew]

That's about how much a 5 GB hard drive cost 20 years ago.

This is what I love about computers and computer technology, every year the technology gets better and cheaper.

[DJBacku]

The animation at 0:20 is in AC4: Black Flag, on the computer screens explaining how the "animus" works using data found in DNA. 

[evertchin]

probably not ideal for primary storage, maybe ideal for archiving/backup least used data.

[RoySchl]

as far a i know the data on cds and dvds has a lot of redundancies and error correction stuff too, so that is not new... you can do it with all digital data regardless of the storage medium, the only drawback is, that the more error correction you build in the more storage space gets used...

[metholuscaedes]

Accidently? its bigger chance that a normal bug will mutate into something bad that random code will turn into something remotly dangerus.

[RcktCw]

Dnews, You guys are really awesome finding this stuff out and telling us about it.It's really interesting stuff and fun to share.It's also interesting to imagine what the near future will be like with these technologies that you inform us about :D

[Charliegames]

Actually there are 4 possible states. A and T connect, and G and C connect, but that does not affect the order. The inverse of it is just stored as the second side of the strand. When your body is making proteins, it connects amino acids to a strand of RNA based on a piece of your DNA. Each amino acid connects to a group of 3 bases. If there were only two possible states, then there would be 8 possible sets. With 4 states, there can be 64. There are, I believe, 36 amino acids.

[omsrswt]

I go on sprees of watching your videos, they're great. I like to use the links u provide in annotations at the end, but I don't want to cut you off by clicking on them. Then I have to go back to where the annotations were after you were done talking... blah blah.

CAN YOU keep the annotations there for a couple more seconds after the video is over? That would be fantastic. You can even use a Youtube countdown timer.

[billhutchinson]

I want to be able to upload my mind into a computer, a real-time link of that consciousness with my biological body, and several clones and original, germ-lined bodies also with real-time links to the computer, so I would in fact be a single consciousness operating on multiple biological organisms.