Hong Kong researchers store data in bacteria FEATURE 01/10/2011

Hong Kong researchers store data in bacteria

FEATURE

01/10/2011
HONG KONG — The US’ national archives occupy more than 500 miles of shelving; France’s archives stretch for more than 100 miles of shelves, as do Britain’s.

Yet a group of students at Hong Kong’s Chinese University are making strides toward storing such vast amounts of information in an unexpected home: the E.coli bacterium better known as a potential source of serious food poisoning.

“This means you will be able to keep large datasets for the long term in a box of bacteria in the refrigerator,” said Aldrin Yim, a student instructor on the university’s biostorage project, a 2010 gold medalist in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)’s prestigious iGEM competition.

Biostorage — the art of storing and encrypting information in living organisms — is a young field, having existed for about a decade..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110110com3.html