UPDATE 16 Jan 2016 - New Scientist - Karin Ljubic Fister, University Medical Centre, Slovenia has encoded messages into the DNA of plants and seeds - which can be read-back. She foresees "A simple tree could provide all the educational data a child anywhere in the world could need".
I ask - Does DNA already carry the archive of all life, since the beginning? If DNA can carry so much data, and bearing in mind the persistent legibility of very weak signals from outside our solar system, is it possible that our, indeed all, electromagnetic signals are archived and encoded in wave form, across the universe?
Do read this TIME MAGAZINE report (below) in full. Harvard Medical School has data-stored a book on a strand of DNA – the unimaginably small biological living double-helix that stores and transmits your and my life patterns and the patterns for all living things from bacteria to plants to whales. Made of just four chemicals, classified as acids, Deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA is the ultimate compact life seed. The two helical strands separate to enable reproduction and thus new life, conferring unique identity on each life form – and on us humans.
Wiki-Answers say a strand of DNA, weighs 6.5 picograms (one trillionth of a gram) per cell and we humans have 6 grams to 60 grams of DNA each. The Harvard scientists calculate one gram of DNA can hold 455 billion gigabytes of data. A modern laptop or desktop PC holds about 500 gigabytes – on a 4 sq inch disk metal-coating weighing 2.4 micrograms (2.4 millionths of a gram) or 208 gigabytes per gram; So – in gigabytes per gram – DNA 455,000,000,000 /PC 208 = 2,187,500,000 or DNA is 2.1 billion times more efficient. And it lasts for 3.5 billion years.
Living DNA is not fixed. It is now known to constantly change, to alter its sequences, in response to external pressures. It survives legibly in criminal cases, Egyptian Mummies and ancient rocks for millions of years. We may not need to look any further for a dynamic medium capable of faithfully recording our every thought and motion throughout our existence. We exchange DNA and its mass of data in crowds, in our breaths, in water, in food, in waste at all times. It is minuscule and ubiquitous.
And yet the equally legible and coherent electro-magnetic signals, the stuff of the universe, that underlie all matter, including DNA, are orders of magnitude smaller, longer lived, greater travellers and even more packed with data. We and all things continually contribute to and receive this in-formation data at all times – until the End of Days. Beneath DNA is the Aether-Matrix, the electro-magnetic field, which holds the ever-evolving ultimate dynamic seeds of life, the universe and everything.
Time magazine.
“Part of DNA’s genius is just how conspicuously small it is: so dense and energy efficient that one gram of the stuff can hold 455 billion gigabytes. Four grams could in theory hold every scrap of data the entire world produces in a year. Couple this with a theoretical lifespan of 3.5 billion years and you have a revolution in data storage, with wide ranging implications for the amount of information we could record and store.”
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