What is the future of data storage? DNA. [quote]A team at the University of Washington has just moved DNA data storage forward a significant step by making the data stored in DNA both searchable and directly accessible. They encoded four digital images in DNA, and then retrieved them perfectly. In 2012, Harvard researchers demonstrated that 5.5 petabits (5,500 terabits) of data can be stored in a single cubic millimetre of DNA. In 2013, researchers from the European Bioinformatics Institute demonstrated that the data could then be retrieved by sequencing the DNA. To store data as DNA, the binary code needs to be converted into the four nucleotides that make up DNA. DNA is then synthesised with the data encoded. Replicating this DNA is a relatively easy process, which is how Technicolor stored one million copies of the same film in a small vial of DNA.[/quote] As this becomes more cost effective and efficient with fewer errors this will become more and more practical. It also kind of begins blending the line between what is machine and what isn't as our ability to manipulate biological matter advances. All interesting stuff, discuss. http://www.cnet.com/au/news/researchers-store-images-in-dna-search-and-perfectly-retrieve-them/