2020 may finally be the year that 3D printing catches on thanks to a clever new trick that makes it possible to embed printed objects with DNA.
As Futurism puts it:
“Today, most data is stored in 1s and 0s, usually on magnetic- or optical-based systems such as hard drives or DVDs. That’s far from ideal, given that the systems have a max lifespan of about a century and the amount of data each device can store is tiny compared to the massive amount humanity produces.
Enter: DNA data storage.
Past research has shown that it’s possible to translate the 1s and 0s of binary code into the As, Ts, Cs, and Gs of DNA and then create artificial DNA molecules containing that code. A single gram of this DNA can store a billion terabytes of data and preserve it for potentially thousands of years.
Now, a team of European scientists has found a way to store that DNA in essentially any object — a capability it demonstrated by encoding instructions for creating a 3D-printed plastic bunny right in the bunny itself.”
This is a really cool breakthrough that could lead to something even better than the Internet of Things…a DNA of Things, wherein objects, instead of just being connected to the Internet, are also connected to future iterations of themselves across time. But that’s not all. Having the ability to embed objects with DNA could go far beyond just carrying creation instructions as this method could be used to transport information of any kind. Even state secrets.
As Scitechdaily writes:
“A further application of the technology would be to conceal information in everyday objects, a technique experts refer to as steganography. To showcase this application, the scientists turned to history: among the scant documents that attest to life in the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II is a secret archive, which was assembled by a Jewish historian and ghetto resident at that time and hidden from Hitler’s troops in milk cans. Today, this archive is listed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register.
Grass, Erlich and their colleagues used the technology to store a short film about this archive (1.4 megabytes) in glass beads, which they then poured into the lenses of ordinary glasses. ‘It would be no problem to take a pair of glasses like this through airport security and thus transport information from one place to another undetected,’ Erlich says. In theory, it should be possible to hide the glass beads in any plastic objects that do not reach too high a temperature during the manufacturing process. Such plastics include epoxides, polyester, polyurethane, and silicone.”
That is some serious spy shit and a look at just how game-changing this technology really is. It even seemingly has the ability to do the unthinkable: make 3D printing relevant.
Is the DNA of Things the Greatest Idea Ever?
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