What is synthetic DNA?

About this episode

What is synthetic DNA? Thanks for asking! Humanity is faced with the complex issue of how to store and archive all the digital data it produces. Sometimes the solutions to our problems are right before our eyes. Or even in every cell in our body! Soon enough, we may end up using synthetic DNA to store our data. In the last few years, scientists have made significant progress in sequencing and synthesising DNA. We are now able to create DNA quickly, without needing to use chemistry. And this progress is leading to great hope.  But what’s the point of producing DNA? Synthetic DNA can be used to create new medicines, produce better quality food and cruelty-free meat or leather for example. Researchers are trying to use this technology to meet a wide range of modern-day challenges. But we hear most about the promise of synthetic DNA in relation to the digital world. With the ever-expanding internet and increasing number of connected devices, there’s an endless amount of data that needs to be stored somewhere. For the moment, we rely on enormous data centres, which have to be permanently cooled, consuming billions of litres of water to do so. They’re expensive to maintain, they take up a lot of physical space and they’re really not good for the environment. So are we going to replace massive hard drives with tubes of DNA?  In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions! To listen the last episodes, you can click here: What is tax evasion? What is a think tank? What is QAnon? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices