Scientists store digital files in an unlikely place: DNA

A new coding technique could make it possible to condense your entire digital library onto a microscopic hard drive.

Except the hard drive won't consist of metals and plastic. It will be made of DNA.

Scientists in New York have developed a way to compress digital files and squeeze the data into the four base nucleotides of DNA: A, G, C and T. They did so by adapting an algorithm designed for streaming videos on cell phones.

"We take storage almost [for] granted, and we accumulate a lot of information in our daily life," said Yaniv Erlich, a computer science professor at Columbia University who co-authored a new study describing the technique. Read more...