A group of Boise State [Boise State University in Idaho, US] researchers, led by associate professor of materials science and engineering and associate dean of the College of Innovation and Design Will Hughes, is working toward a better way to store digital information using nucleic acid memory (NAM).
It’s no secret that as a society we generate vast amounts of data each year. So much so that the 30 billion watts of electricity used annually by server farms today is roughly equivalent to the output of 30 nuclear power plants.
And the demand keeps growing. The global flash memory market is predicted to reach $30.2 billion this year, potentially growing to $80.3 billion by 2025. Experts estimate that by 2040, the demand for global memory will exceed the projected supply of silicon (the raw material used to store flash memory). Furthermore, electronic memory is rapidly approaching its fundamental size limits because of the difficulty in storing electrons in small dimensions.
Hughes, with post-doctoral researcher Reza Zadegan and colleagues Victor Zhirnov (Semiconductor Research Corporation), Gurtej Sandhun (Micron Technology Inc.) and George Church (Harvard University), is looking to DNA molecules to solve the problem. Nucleic acid — the “NA” in “DNA” — far surpasses electronic memory in retention time, according to the researchers, while also providing greater information density and energy of operation.
Their conclusions are outlined in an invited commentary in the prestigious journal Nature Materials published earlier this month.
“DNA is the data storage material of life in general,” said Hughes. “Because of its physical and chemical properties, it also may become the data storage material of our lives.” It may sound like science fiction, but Hughes will participate in an invitation-only workshop this month at the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) Agency to envision a portable DNA hard drive that would have 500 Terabytes of searchable data – that’s about the the size of the Library of Congress Web Archive.
“When information bits are encoded into polymer strings, researchers and manufacturers can manage and manipulate physical, chemical and biological information with standard molecular biology techniques,” the paper [in Nature Materials?] states.
Cost-competitive technologies to read and write DNA could lead to real-world applications ranging from artificial chromosomes, digital hard drives and information-management systems, to a platform for watermarking and tracking genetic content or next-generation encryption tools that necessitate physical rather than electronic embodiment.
Here’s how it works. Current binary code uses 0’s and 1’s to represent bits of information. A computer program then accesses a specific decoder to turn the numbers back into usable data. With nucleic acid memory, 0’s and 1’s are replaced with the nucleotides A, T, C and G. Known as monomers, they are covalently bonded to form longer polymer chains, also known as information strings.
Because of DNA’s superior ability to store data, DNA can contain all the information in the world in a small box measuring 10 x 10 x 10 centimeters cubed. NAM could thus be used as a sustainable time capsule for massive, scientific, financial, governmental, historical, genealogical, personal and genetic records.
Better yet, DNA can store digital information for a very long time – thousands to millions of years. Currently, usable information has been extracted from DNA in bones that are 700,000 years old, making nucleic acid memory a promising archival material. And nucleic acid memory uses 100 million times less energy than storing data electronically in flash, and the data can live on for generations.
At Boise State, Hughes and Zadegan are examining DNA’s stability under extreme conditions. DNA strands are subjected to temperatures varying from negative 20 degrees Celsius to 100 degrees Celsius, and to a variety of UV exposures to see if they can still retain their information. What they’re finding is that much less information is lost with NAM than with the current state of the industry.
This entry was posted in science and tagged Boise State, Boise State University, computer memory, DNA molecules, electronic memory, flash memory, George Church, George M. Church, Gurtej S. Sandhu, Gurtej Sandhun, Harvard University, IARPA, Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity Agency (IARPA), Micron Technology, nucleic acid, Nucleic acid memory, nucleic acid memory (NAM), portable DNA hard drive, Reza M. Zadegan, Reza Zadegan, Semiconductor Research Corporation, US, Victor Zhirnov, Will Hughes, William L. Hughes on April 29, 2016 by Maryse de la Giroday.
A workshop organized last year  by the PETA International Science Consortium Ltd has resulted in an article published today in the journal Particle and Fibre Toxicology (“Aerosol generation and characterization of multi-walled carbon nanotubes [MWCNTs] exposed to cells cultured at the air-liquid interface”). It describes aerosol generation and exposure tools that can be used to predict toxicity in human lungs following inhalation of nanomaterials.
“Promoting non-animal methods to assess nanotoxicity has been a focus of the PETA International Science Consortium”, said Dr. Monita Sharma, co-author of the publication and Nanotechnology Specialist at the Consortium, “we organized an international workshop last year on inhalation testing of nanomaterials and this review describes some of the tools that can be used to provide a better understanding of what happens in humans after inhaling these substances.” During the workshop, experts provided recommendations on the design of an in vitro test to assess the toxicity of nanomaterials (especially multi-walled carbon nanotubes) in the lung, including cell types, endpoints, exposure systems, and dosimetry considerations. Additional publications summarizing the outcomes of the workshop are forthcoming.
This entry was posted in nanotechnology and tagged Aerosol generation and characterization of multi-walled carbon nanotubes exposed to cells cultured at the air-liquid interface, aerosols, Amy J. Clippinger, Baylor University, Christie M. Sayes, Dow Chemical, inhalation, Jon A. Hotchkiss, lungs, Monita Sharma, multi-walled carbon nanotubes, MWCNTs, nanomaterials, nanotoxicity, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), PETA International Science Consortium, toxicity, U.S. NTP Interagency Center for the Evaluation of Alternative Toxicological Methods (NICEATM), William W. Polk on April 27, 2016 by Maryse de la Giroday.
In a paper published in Physical Review Letters, researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory [ORNL] describe a new tunneling state of water molecules confined in hexagonal ultra-small channels — 5 angstrom across — of the mineral beryl. An angstrom is 1/10-billionth of a meter, and individual atoms are typically about 1 angstrom in diameter.
Quantum Tunneling of Water in Beryl: A New State of the Water Molecule by Alexander I. Kolesnikov, George F. Reiter, Narayani Choudhury, Timothy R. Prisk, Eugene Mamontov, Andrey Podlesnyak, George Ehlers, Andrew G. Seel, David J. Wesolowski, and Lawrence M. Anovitz.
This entry was posted in science and tagged Alexander I. Kolesnikov, Alexander Kolesnikov, Andrew G. Seel, Andrey Podlesnyak, beryl, David J. Wesolowski, DOE, Eugene Mamontov, George Ehlers, George F. Reiter, Jeff Scovil, Lawrence Anovitz, Lawrence M. Anovitz, Narayani Choudhury, new tunneling state of water molecules, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, quantum mechanics, quantum motion, Quantum Tunneling of Water in Beryl: A New State of the Water Molecule, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Spallation Neutron Source, Timothy R. Prisk, tunneling water, UK, US, US Department of Energy, water molecules on April 27, 2016 by Maryse de la Giroday.