January 27, 2003
DNA-ROM
Posted by bopuc at January 27, 2003 06:14 PM
Data stored in multiplying bacteria
11:02†08†January†03
The scientists took the words of the song It's a Small World and translated it into a code based on the four "letters" of DNA. They then created artificial DNA strands recording different parts of the song. These DNA messages, each about 150 bases long, were inserted into bacteria such as E. coli and Deinococcus radiodurans.
Comments
So now they're not just bacteria, they're really-annoying-song-carrying bacteria. And we needed this, why?
On the other hand, what if the DNA code represented by "It's A Small World" turns out to become a virus worse than Ebola? Silly hubristic men-creatures!
Posted by: AJ at January 28, 2003 09:20 AM
Dude, you are the comments master. I love it. Hats off.
What's twisted (forgive pun) about this, in my mind, and I don't mean morally or anything like that, is that DNA is already code for something else (like I dunno, life or something important like that). So we go in there and move stuff around so we can carry around our MP3 collection in a wart on our ass, and bang! All kindsa crazy stuff starts happening!
Yeah, I mean, DNA is ostensibly like programming code.. what happens when you fiddle with code? You break something...
hrmmm.
Posted by: Boris Anthony at January 28, 2003 10:06 AM