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MGM/VICTOR TANGERMANN

Topics: Biology, Computer Science, DNA

Why cannot we write the entire 24 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica on the head of a pin? Dr. Richard P. Feynman, "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom," said to be the seminal talk that started the concept of atomic-level engineering, soon known as nanotechnology, (named by Professor Norio Taniguchi, 1974, of the Tokyo Science University).

The intricate arrangement of base pairs in our DNA encodes just about everything about us. Now, DNA contains the entirety of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” as well.

A team of University of Texas Austin scientists just vastly improved the storage capacity of DNA and managed to encode the entire novel — translated into the geek-friendly language of Esperanto — in a double strand of DNA far more efficiently than has been done before. DNA storage isn’t new, but this work could help finally make it practical.

Big tech companies like Microsoft are already exploring DNA-storage technology, as the biomolecule can encode several orders of magnitude more information per unit volume than a hard drive. But DNA is particularly error-prone. It can easily be damaged and erase whatever’s stored on it.

“The key breakthrough is an encoding algorithm that allows accurate retrieval of the information even when the DNA strands are partially damaged during storage,” molecular biologist Ilya Finkelstein said in a UT Austin press release.

Scientists Stored "The Wizard of Oz" on a Strand of DNA, Dan Robitzgi, Futurism