Vulbus Incognita Magazine
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Arts & Tendencies with a bit of geek culture
Curated by vidistar
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Future of Data: Encoded in DNA

Future of Data: Encoded in DNA | Vulbus Incognita Magazine | Scoop.it
In the latest attempt to corral society's growing quantities of digital data, Harvard University researchers encoded an entire book into the genetic molecules of DNA, the basic building block of life, and then accurately read back the text.

Via Wildcat2030
Wildcat2030's curator insight, December 29, 2012 5:00 AM

In the latest effort to contend with exploding quantities of digital data, researchers encoded an entire book into the genetic molecules of DNA, the basic building block of life, and then accurately read back the text.

The experiment, reported Thursday in the journal Science, may point a way toward eventual data-storage devices with vastly more capacity for their size than today's computer chips and drives.

"A device the size of your thumb could store as much information as the whole Internet," said Harvard University molecular geneticist George Church, the project's senior researcher.

In their work, the group translated the English text of a coming book on genomic engineering into actual DNA.

DNA contains genetic instructions written in a simple but powerful code made up of four chemicals called bases: adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C) and thymine (T).

The Harvard researchers started with the digital version of the book, which is composed of the ones and zeros that computers read. Next, on paper, they translated the zeros into either the A or C of the DNA base pairs, and changed the ones into either the G or T.

Then, using now-standard laboratory techniques, they created short strands of actual DNA that held the coded sequence—almost 55,000 strands in all. Each strand contained a portion of the text and an address that indicated where it occurred in the flow of the book.

In that form—a viscous liquid or solid salt—a billion copies of the book could fit easily into a test tube and, under normal conditions, last for centuries, the researchers said.

AkoZ's comment, December 30, 2012 2:24 AM
good storage.. organic and threaten by disease ? ..
Then what is the delay to copy or just translate into readable words ?
The point is the direct access to our brains with that stock inside: self-converting and providing the ideas in seconds: this may indicate the exponential reduce of time this will be effective !!
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The Evolution of Urban Planning in 10 Diagrams

The Evolution of Urban Planning in 10 Diagrams | Vulbus Incognita Magazine | Scoop.it
A new exhibit from the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association showcases the simple visualizations of complex ideas that have changed how we live.

The exhibition’s title – Grand Reductions – suggests a simple illustration’s power to encapsulate complex ideas. And for that reason the medium has always been suited to the city, an intricate organism that has been re-imagined (with satellite towns! in rural grids! in megaregions!) by generations of architects, planners and idealists.

In the urban context, diagrams can be powerful precisely because they make weighty questions of land use and design digestible in a single sweep of the eye. But as well-known plans, such as Le Corbusier’s, illustrates, they can also seductively oversimplify the problems of cities. These 10 diagrams have been tremendously influential – not always for the good...

 

View all the diagrams as well as their descriptions at the article link...


Via Lauren Moss
Jay C. Estes's curator insight, April 16, 3:41 PM

Fascinating article.  I love planning history.