How data can be stored in bacteria ?

Normally whenever you think of data storage, the choices that would come to your mind are Hard Disks, flash drives, CD/DVD etc . However the researchers in Japan don’t think that way . The see something that is very much smaller and much more durable – Bacteria , yeah I am talking about those microscopic organisms which you studied about in your Biology class.

The concept behind

Japanese researchers are developing methods to store the data in Bacteria . According to Keio University professor Masaru Tomita who heads the team of researchers , the four characters - T , C , A , G that represents the genetic coding in DNA works much like digital data . Character combinations can stand for specific letters and symbols — so codes in genomes can be translated, or read, to produce music, text, video and other content.

What can be the advantage

And the good think is that information will be available as long the species stays alive – possible a million years . The team has successfully inserted into a common bacterium Albert Einstein’s Famous ‘E equals MC square’ equation . But mutation could distort stored data, Tomita says data are stored in four places in the bacteria so the data stay intact .

So imagine if this thing becomes possible , data storage will become so cheap as bacteria are all around us , you just need to catch one . And if you are lucky you might catch a bacteria which was lost by someone else and could contain movies etc.