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Yes, one of many.
Another one is a simple question: What exactly is the use case again? Because, storage isn't something we lack. Especially when talking about storage where, obviously, fast random access isn't a requirement, aka. data archiving.
We have good solutions for that; an LTO-9 tape can hold 18TiB of data native and up to 45 TiB of data compressed, with denser capacities planned: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_Tape-Open
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> And billions of years old. With not quite good backup strategies.
DNA/RNA looks to be more like storing heuristics, landmarks and clues, not data.
Anyone else think that there is already primitive image data encoded in biological data? Essentially basic shapes and patterns which are passed down semi-generationally.
I guess it's possible if this conferred some survival advantage. It can be useful to work from the evidence to a conclusion instead of the other way round. But wondering and philosophising can be fun :] It would be cool if humans could pass knowledge via their offspring. But I always get worried thinking if I'm the asshole, I wouldn't want my kid to be one too.
Plenty of mutations have no purpose whatsoever and were unrelated to survival or manifest after reproduction so are not selected for or against.
> DNA synthesis remains a bottleneck in the adoption of DNA as a data storage medium. Yes, one of many. Another one is a simple question: What exactly is the use case again? Because, storage isn't something we lack. Especially when talking about storage where, obviously, fast random access isn't a requirement, aka. data archiving. We have good solutions for that; an LTO-9 tape can hold 18TiB of data native and up to…
"one gram of dried DNA can store 455 exabytes of data"
Seems like a pretty sweet use case to me!
I definitely do lack storage by the way. Say I want to download the common crawl data set, 380 TiB. And for redundancy I'd need multiple copies of the data too. That's a lot of disks for in the home. "18TiB ought to be enough for everyone" really doensn't cut it.
Obviously if you have a special use case, then that may dominate your radix economy (like hex, b64, etc...), but for general purpose information purposes, the order base 3, base 4, then base 2.
This present a lot of interesting questions to me. Like, why didn't DNA end up as base 3? (probably because 4 naturally lends itself to pairs of 2).
Also, this idea of radix economy goes beyond just the encoding of information and is represented in logical economy as well. So for example, ternary logic is (much) more efficient than binary logic. Having that 3rd state just makes problem solving much more elegant.
To that end, I have always wondered how nature has exploited this 4-state number system logically. Like, are there all sorts of exotic logic gates that come from a 4 state system?
> DNA synthesis remains a bottleneck in the adoption of DNA as a data storage medium. Yes, one of many. Another one is a simple question: What exactly is the use case again? Because, storage isn't something we lack. Especially when talking about storage where, obviously, fast random access isn't a requirement, aka. data archiving. We have good solutions for that; an LTO-9 tape can hold 18TiB of data native and up to…
Something that I always found fascinating is how DNA is a base 4 information format. There's this thing called radix economy, which is basically an expression of how efficient a number system is. Base e is the theoretical maximum, and so base 3 is the closest integer. Obviously if you have a special use case, then that may dominate your radix economy (like hex, b64, etc...), but for general purpose information purpos…
> DNA synthesis remains a bottleneck in the adoption of DNA as a data storage medium. Yes, one of many. Another one is a simple question: What exactly is the use case again? Because, storage isn't something we lack. Especially when talking about storage where, obviously, fast random access isn't a requirement, aka. data archiving. We have good solutions for that; an LTO-9 tape can hold 18TiB of data native and up to…
>The fossil record of Xiphosura goes back over 440 million years to the Ordovician period, with the oldest representatives of the modern family Limulidae dating to approximately 250 million years ago during the Early Triassic. As such, the extant forms have been described as "living fossils".[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_crab
Anyone else think that there is already primitive image data encoded in biological data? Essentially basic shapes and patterns which are passed down semi-generationally.
I guess it's possible if this conferred some survival advantage. It can be useful to work from the evidence to a conclusion instead of the other way round. But wondering and philosophising can be fun :] It would be cool if humans could pass knowledge via their offspring. But I always get worried thinking if I'm the asshole, I wouldn't want my kid to be one too.
If you were, you would.