Storage technologies are not standing still - magnetic tape reels have given way to hard drives, which are being replaced by three-dimensional memory circuits. However, no matter how paradoxical it sounds, the basis for new approaches in this area may be a mechanism as ancient as life on Earth. It's about DNA.
Certain successes in this area have already been achieved. Last Friday, representatives of an American startup called Catalog announced that they were able to fit the full text of the English-language version of Wikipedia into DNA molecules - similar to those found in our cells.
Such an accomplishment was made possible by the world's first DNA recorder. If necessary, you can even place it at home - however, for this you have to sacrifice some little things like a refrigerator and a kitchen oven. Of course, in the foreseeable future, this technology will hardly be able to seriously compete with flash cards used in phones, but its creators believe that today it can find its consumers among those who need to store large amounts of information.
DNA strands are very small, and using them for your own purposes is not an easy task. However, as it turned out, in addition to genetic information (determining who its carrier is - say, a pea bush or a monkey), these molecules are also capable of storing other data. Within the framework of the proposed approach, Catalog uses artificial DNA chains that are shorter than human ones. However, due to their high usage, much more data can fit on them.
At first glance, you might think that the emphasis on DNA instead of ultra-modern high-tech miniature devices is more of a rollback. However, this approach has its advantages - DNA strands are compact and chemically stable. And taking into account that this is the basis of all life on earth, it is unlikely to ever become outdated, as happened, for example, with CDs that are almost out of use - not to mention floppy drives for which you will no longer find drives in modern computers.
What other players in this industry can you name? As an alleged partner, Catalog mentions the Arch Mission Foundation, which intends to spread the knowledge accumulated by people outside the Earth - for example, this was done with the help of the Tesla Roadster belonging to Elon Musk, which was launched into space by SpaceX and is now drifting there. Catalog does not name any other potential clients - moreover, it is not yet clear whether the company is going to demand payment for such services.
Catalog uses an addressing system that deals with large-scale information arrays. In the case of DNA, data is stored in long strings, but with molecular probes, any location can be accessed. In other words, like a hard disk, it is a direct-access memory device - unlike magnetic tape reels, which use the principle of sequential access. Although DNA-stored data can be damaged by the effects of cosmic radiation, the company insists that the technology is more reliable than its alternatives.
Natalia Golovakha
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