Scientist has been able to inplant system information (JPEG, .TXT) ect. into bacterial DNA. Then when the bacteria produced offspring, they were about to retreave that information from that organism. The natural process of mutation did not allow the information to be repordecued like the original, but what do you think?
2007-02-23 10:09:55 · 4 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Biology
Interesting. I had not heard this ... but it makes sense.
DNA is a great information storage medium. And in a bacterium, it comes with a free information replication system. As long as nothing in the stored information (the JPEG or .TXT) is an instruction for something lethal to the bacteria, it will reproduce it just fine ... to the bacteria, it is just "junk DNA" ... replicated, but ignored.
However, yes, replication in life is not perfect. Not only are errors (mutations) commonplace, they are *part* of the system. Normally, errors are eliminated immediately if they are bad for survival, and propagate if they are good for survival. But since the introduced JPEG or TXT is not something the bacteria cares about for survival, errors are neither eliminated nor encouraged. So it is like a computer disk that introduces errors every time you save the file. After a few generations the stored information will contain many errors.
Not to make a pun, but .... c'est la vie. (That's life.)
2007-02-23 10:25:31 · answer #1 · answered by secretsauce 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It's feasible.
Personally, I think it's more interesting to use DNA molecules as micro-manipulators, like tiny tweezers. That's cool!
2007-02-23 18:41:31 · answer #2 · answered by poorcocoboiboi 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
extremely interesting that it is possible to manipulate data on a molecular level, soon the iPods will become even smaller
2007-02-23 18:13:10 · answer #3 · answered by gjmb1960 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
DNA computing has been around for years. It's mostly classified.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_computing
2007-02-23 18:22:40 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋