Scientists pave the way for large-scale storage at the atomic level

Re:Scientists pave the way for large-scale storage at the at... by dekhn on Tuesday July 19, 2016 @10:29AM (#12121965)

The storage in the article is 2D surface. DNA storage in viruses is highly compacted in 3D. Single atom storage is limited by the interatomic distance and the accessibility of the atoms (you could use a series of 2D surfaces stacked on each other to increase density). DNA storage is roughly 30 atoms/base or bit. So, probably the single atom method could ultimately be scaled further.

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Re:Scientists pave the way for large-scale storage at the at... by delibes on Tuesday July 19, 2016 @10:52AM (#12122109)

Well OK it spirals around, but isn't RNA/DNA really just linear? To access, you need an enzyme to walk it forwards or backwards and there are no other options that I know of. (I'm not a biologist)

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Re:Scientists pave the way for large-scale storage at the at... by mcarlise on Tuesday July 19, 2016 @11:09AM (#12122193)

> but isn't RNA/DNA really just linear

No, it's not. RNA/DNA contains 4D of information. You need hundreds of proteins (also to be clear not enzymes - all enzymes are proteins, not all proteins are enzymes). Additionally (along with proteins), you need to unpack the chromatin structures - which requires huge cellular state transitions (hence the 4th dimension). So what bases are available to be replicated (read?) is dependent on the chromatin structure and their current state (euchromatin/heterochromatin), then depending on local molecular concentrations, replication is dependented on what proteins are locally available (due to the nucleosome structure). This is the very essence to why a large number of traits and diseases do not follow mendelian inheritance.

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Re:Scientists pave the way for large-scale storage at the at... by dekhn on Tuesday July 19, 2016 @11:36AM (#12122349)

More likely, complex traits are influenced by gene regulation, which is affected by chromatin structure, but chromatin is just one form of regulation.

Complex traits are more likely just due to many interaction elements (promoters, enhancers affecting multiple genes in a nonlinear way) and the complex feedback mechanisms and redundancy mechanisms.

Chromatin state is completely abolished and recovered (in a non-deterministic way) in egg and sperm, which places some limits on which it can influence inheritence.

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Re:Scientists pave the way for large-scale storage at the at... by dekhn on Tuesday July 19, 2016 @11:33AM (#12122323)

My point is that while DNA is linear, using 3D structure makes packing density far higher.

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Re:Scientists pave the way for large-scale storage at the at... by saiya-jin on Tuesday July 19, 2016 @11:12AM (#12122216)

yeah it's 1-dimensional and processing I know about is sequential, twist is there just to make it more flexible inside the cell similar to old telephone cord (something about putting 3-meter line into few tens of micrometer sized cell)

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