DNA cassette tapes could solve global data storage problems

Comments

• floofloof@lemmy.ca ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Is this how we get the first computer virus that can jump species into humans? Imagine humanity being taken down because someone’s college essay, when zipped, happens to encode a plague.

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  • Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    That’s how you put the plague in plagiarism.

    Fine, dammit, take your upvote! Haha

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• lvxferre@mander.xyz ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  That’s amazing.

  And it doesn’t even need to stop there. Sure, DNA is a convenient starting point - we have enzymes to read and write it, plus it’s a well-studied macromolecule. But that info doesn’t need to be encoded the exact same way biological beings do (a string of phosphate and sugar with pyrimidine and purine-based molecules attached to it). We could do something weird, like

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  That’s just an example using silicone, mind you. I think you guys get the idea - to use the biological molecules as inspiration, but not force ourselves to do things exactly like nature does.

  I know, easier said than done, but think on the benefits of this approach:

  • no risk of interference in biological organisms, like @floofloof@lemmy.ca highlighted
  • no risk of biological organisms interfering with it
  • you can tweak information density, error, even longevity

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  • Sal@mander.xyz ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    The R2S=O case is closer to a trigonal planar geometry, the other silicon is tetrahedral. The silicon-silicon distances for different pairs of adjacent molecule types will be different. In a very very rough forcefield optimization I see about 3% difference. I don’t think this one will work out structurally because the chains will become unable to pair after a short length as the chain will not have the flexibility to create the O–H bond without adding too much strain.

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    But, that’s just one thing. You then need to consider how to actually selectively place/remove the hydrogen atoms, how to avoid the molecule from chemically reacting, and how to read out the data.

    So, yes, eventually it would be nice to have a fully orthogonal system. There are already several synthetic DNA base pairs that can be used instead of the naturally present bases. But these would still be susceptible to DNAses or RNAses.

    The way I see it is that the chemistry of living things is currently centuries ahead of human tech. A large portion of the techniques used in biochemistry rely on using living things to produce the components, and then we purify those components and use them. It makes a lot of sense to make use of that toolkit because the amount of challenges that need to be solved to create this system from scratch is massive.

    Your proposal of your silicon chain reminds of the Ferroelectric RAM, where the state is encoded by the polarity of a cell that is changed by moving a zirconium or titanium cation:

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    This does work, but it works because the crystal is contained within a semiconductor scaffold, and this is something that we do have a good handle on.

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    • lvxferre@mander.xyz ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Fair point - I completely forgot to take the 3D geometry into account. I guess this could be solved by either making both sp³ (sub the Si-O with Si-Cl) or both sp² (sub the H-O-Si with H-N=Si)? But then writing data becomes more complicated than just adding or removing hydrogens that, as you said, isn’t as simple as it looks like.

      There are already several synthetic DNA base pairs that can be used instead of the naturally present bases.

      Like the dNaM / dTPT3 pair, right? That’s perhaps more viable, at least to increase information density.

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• Sal@mander.xyz ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Very cool!

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  • Domino@quokk.au ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I'm sure the data/space savings are great, but for me it's the 'cool' factor of mixing blood and machines, although it sounds very dystopian when I word it like that.

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    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      If you want to mix blood and machines may I recommend manufacturing? We do it all the time.

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