Briefs

New Scientist Online (01/08/03); McDowell, Natasha

American researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have successfully stored information within bacteria as artificial DNA in an effort to create a new type of memory that could survive a nuclear catastrophe or other disaster. The researchers encoded the lyrics to the song "It's a Small World" into synthetic DNA strands, which were then embedded into bacteria such as Deinococcus radiourans and E.coli. The former has a strong tolerance to high temperatures, ultraviolet light, desiccation, and ionizing radiation doses 1,000 times higher than would be fatal to people.

The scientists created special DNA "sentinels" attached to the beginning and end of each message that prevent the bacteria from mistaking the message for a virus. The sentinel is so reliable that the exact message is preserved even after 100 bacterial generations, notes information technologist Pak Chung Wong.

Here is the full story.