Up until now, there has been no way to harness the storage capability of DNA. At Harvard University as of 2012, they stored 700 terabytes into a single gram of DNA. “So compact and complex are its strands that just 1 gram of DNA is theoretically capable of containing all the data of internet giants such as Google and Facebook, with room to spare.” Stated CNN to give a look as to how capable this really would be. This is not only a revelation of space in such a small item, but it also will survive the tests of time as well as storage. Normal hard drives will only work for so much time, some lasting longer than others, but all of them ultimately failing in the end and breaking to an unusable state. Using DNA as a storage could ultimately eliminate this problem seeing as DNA can store animal code for millions of years, using fossils people have been able to see things from long ago, and the same might eventually be done with our data.

The way it works is by converting the regular computer code into the same kind of “code” DNA uses, with the bases T, C, G, and A. Each of these being seen as representing a binary value of T and G = 1, A and C = 0. Each of these being taken and synthesized into DNA from that which is then decoded to access the data.

With this people could eventually use this kind if measure to access and terabytes upon terabytes of data into something that could fit into your pocket. And this data could be kept for thousands of years helping record history that would never be lost and helping you keep your games and documents as long as you need them.

FSA Connection Questions

1. In the article, the author is trying to convey about storage?
2. In the piece, the words DNA mean what?
3. What is the main idea?
4. What two sentences best summarize this piece?
5. What is the connotation of the word code in the story?