Data in DNA. Storing Data Biologically

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 experime