by Elio
Your Next Data Storage Device May Be a Spore
"E=mc2 1905!" has been encoded in the DNA of Bacillus subtilis. Quotation marks, superscript, exclamation points, and all. All it took was to encrypt the text of that famous formula as a DNA base sequence, to synthesize a snippet of DNA with that sequence, and to incorporate that snippet by genetic transformation.
Photomicrograph of Bacillus subtilis sporulating. Green: spore in process of being made; Blue: DNA; Red: cell membrane. Courtesy of Kit Pogliano.
The authors propose a data storage strategy analogous to that used in disc drives, where redundant information is stored in different sectors, later to be retrieved by a process of assembly. Multiple insertions of the same sequence would lessen the risk of degradation due to mutations or recombination. Sounds handy, stable, and perhaps even cheap.
Link to article and to a news item in the Guardian Unlimited.
A Chance to Dig Deep
A news item on CNN reports that British scientists are going to send a robot down a mysterious hole in the Earth‚s crust. This hole is 5 Km below the surface of the Atlantic near the Canary Islands and is 3-4 Km across. Supposedly, the hole goes through the Earth‚s crust and exposes the mantle. The intent is for the robot to dig into the mantle. Despite Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth, one assumes that the mantle is free of life. But it would be interesting if on the way down, the robot recovered samples from the deep crust to be studied for their content of microbes.
Three Is What It Takes
tropical panic grass.
A plant called "tropical panic grass" thrives in the hot soils of Yellowstone National Park, but can not do so without help. The grass becomes heat tolerant when infected by a mutualistic fungus – something that had been known for some time. However, this tolerance occurs only if the fungus is itself infected by a virus. Neither the fungus nor the plant alone survive temperatures above 38° , but together they can survive temperatures up to 65°C. at the roots. Freezing kills the virus but not the fungus; thus one can test whether the fungus alone can confer heat tolerance. It cannot. Tomato plants can also be infected with the virus-containing fungus, which does, indeed, makes them more heat-tolerant, as well. full article.
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