09-27-2018, 09:25 PM
Lunar library to include photos, books stored in DNA
<div style="margin: 5px 5% 10px 5%;"><img src="http://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/lunar-library-to-include-photos-books-stored-in-dna.jpg" width="750" height="448" title="" alt="" /></div><div><p class="story-tags"> <a href="http://www.washington.edu/news/category/engineering/" rel="category tag">Engineering</a> | <a href="http://www.washington.edu/news/category/research/" rel="category tag">Research</a> | <a href="http://www.washington.edu/news/category/blog/" rel="category tag">UW Today blog</a> </p>
<p class="date">September 27, 2018</p>
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<div id="attachment_56293" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/uw-s3-cdn/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2018/01/04132114/collage-memories-in-dna.jpg"><img class="size-full-content wp-image-56293" src="http://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/lunar-library-to-include-photos-books-stored-in-dna.jpg" alt="A collage of family photographs" width="750" height="448" /></a></p>
<p class="wp-caption-text">A selection of images submitted to the #MemoriesInDNA project.<span class="wp-media-credit">University of Washington</span></p>
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<p>People who have submitted photos to the <a href="http://www.washington.edu/news/2018/01/24/memoriesindna-project/">#MemoriesInDNA project</a> have selected images of family members, favorite places and tasty food that will be preserved for years in the form of synthetic DNA. Now this collection — which currently contains more than 3,000 images and is still growing — will be headed to the final frontier: space.</p>
<div id="attachment_58991" class="wp-caption alignright"><img class="size-medium wp-image-58991" src="http://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/lunar-library-to-include-photos-books-stored-in-dna-1.jpg" alt="analog microfiche on thin sheets of nickel with a dime for scale" width="300" height="200" /></p>
<p class="wp-caption-text">The Lunar Library will also contain pages stored as <a href="https://www.astrobotic.com/2018/5/15/arch-mission-foundation-partners-with-astrobotic-to-launch-historic-lunar-library" target="_blank">analog microfiche on thin sheets of nickel</a> (dime for scale). The team is still working on how the DNA contents of this library will be stored.<span class="wp-media-credit">Arch Mission Foundation</span></p>
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<p>The <a href="https://archmission.org/">Arch Mission Foundation</a>, which creates archives that can survive for a long time in space, <a href="http://www.prweb.com/releases/the_arch_mission_foundation_announces_digital_data_stored_in_dna_added_to_lunar_library_creating_groundbreaking_archive_of_knowledge_on_the_moon/prweb15795934.htm">announced today</a> that it will be partnering with researchers at the University of Washington, Microsoft and Twist Bioscience to include media stored in DNA in its newest shipment, which is destined to go to the moon in less than two years.</p>
<p>Researchers at the <a href="http://misl.cs.washington.edu/">Molecular Information Systems Lab</a> at the University of Washington and Microsoft plan to provide both the #MemoriesInDNA project and a DNA archive of e-books for this mission. The Arch Mission Foundation’s <a href="https://archmission.org/whatsnext/">Lunar Library</a> will also include instructions for how to sequence DNA and how to access the contents of the archive.</p>
<p>To prepare the DNA for its life in space, the researchers have been developing new methods to package and protect the information it stores.</p>
<p>“Sending DNA into space is a great opportunity for us to make our storage system more robust,” said <a href="https://www.cs.washington.edu/people/faculty/luisceze">Luis Ceze</a>, a professor in the UW’s Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. “How can we protect the DNA so that it will still be readable thousands of years into the future?”</p>
<div id="attachment_59012" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="size-full-content wp-image-59012" src="http://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/lunar-library-to-include-photos-books-stored-in-dna-2.jpg" alt="Group shot of the Molecular Information Systems Lab" width="750" height="500" /></p>
<p class="wp-caption-text">Researchers at the Molecular Information Systems Lab plan to provide both the #MemoriesInDNA project and a DNA archive of e-books for this mission.<span class="wp-media-credit">Dennis Wise/University of Washington</span></p>
</div>
<p>Storing electronic data in DNA molecules saves a lot of storage space. Data centers require acres of land and account for <a href="https://datacenters.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/DataCenterEnergyReport2016_0.pdf">nearly 2 percent of the total electricity consumption</a> in the United States, but DNA molecules can store information millions of times more compactly using less energy.</p>
<p>“DNA is so dense that we can store a lot of information in a single gram,” said Ceze. “This is huge because room is so limited in space missions.”</p>
<p>The basic process converts digital data’s strings of ones and zeroes into the four basic building blocks of DNA sequences: adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine. The team is working with <a href="http://www.twistbioscience.com/">Twist Bioscience</a> to create synthetic DNA molecules in a lab. This DNA doesn’t come from living organisms. Instead, it is synthesized from scratch base by base (letter by letter).</p>
<p>In space, stray cosmic rays could break DNA strands, making them unreadable. So Ceze and his team have been working on methods to ensure that they can still decode all the information, even if some of the DNA degrades.</p>
<p>The first method, called physical redundancy, involves adding multiple copies of each strand of DNA to the archive. So if one copy is destroyed, there are still many other copies with the same information. The team is considering adding billions of copies of each strand to account for degradation over time, Ceze said.</p>
<p>The second method, called <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.4079.pdf">logical redundancy</a>, attaches information about the data within the DNA itself, like adding information about how two puzzle pieces go together. That way if all copies of a DNA strand go missing, the researchers can piece together what was lost and still get all of the data.</p>
<p>For example, to store two numbers — two and three — researchers would also store the information that two plus three equals five. So if something happened to the number two, the numbers five and three would still exist. That logic could be reversed to conclude that the missing information is five minus three — or two.</p>
<p>Now that the team is working with the Arch Mission Foundation, it has a strict deadline to finalize all packaging and storage plans: The Lunar Library is expected to be <a href="https://archmission.org/whatsnext/">delivered to the surface of the moon by 2020</a>.</p>
<p>“We’re proud that this partnership with Arch continues to push the boundaries of what’s possible in increasingly exciting ways and remarkable directions,” said collaborator <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/kstrauss/">Karin Strauss</a>, a senior researcher at Microsoft and a UW affiliate associate professor of computer science and engineering. “This is an incredibly exciting project and we have a great multidisciplinary team working on it: coding theorists, computer architects, engineers and molecular biologists, all coming together to make this new technology a reality.”</p>
<div id="attachment_59008" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="size-full-content wp-image-59008" src="http://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/lunar-library-to-include-photos-books-stored-in-dna-3.jpg" alt="The moon as seen from space" width="750" height="561" /></p>
<p class="wp-caption-text">An image of the moon (top right) that is included in the #MemoriesInDNA project.<span class="wp-media-credit">University of Washington #MemoriesInDNA</span></p>
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<p>For more details about how to include your own images in the #MemoriesInDNA project, visit the <a href="http://memoriesindna.com/">project website</a> or email <a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a>. <em>Note: To be included in the DNA image collection, photographs cannot be copyrighted by any other party and must be free of violent or inappropriate content. The image dataset will be preserved in DNA indefinitely and shared with researchers worldwide.</em></p>
<p>###</p>
<p>For more information, contact <a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a> or visit the #MemoriesInDNA Project website: <a href="http://memoriesindna.com/">MemoriesInDNA.com</a>.</p>
<p> <small>Tag(s): <a href="http://www.washington.edu/news/tag/college-of-engineering/" rel="tag">College of Engineering</a> • <a href="http://www.washington.edu/news/tag/luis-ceze/" rel="tag">Luis Ceze</a> • <a href="http://www.washington.edu/news/tag/molecular-information-systems-lab/" rel="tag">Molecular Information Systems Lab</a> • <a href="http://www.washington.edu/news/tag/paul-g-allen-school-of-computer-science-engineering/" rel="tag">Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering</a></small></p>
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<div style="margin: 5px 5% 10px 5%;"><img src="http://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/lunar-library-to-include-photos-books-stored-in-dna.jpg" width="750" height="448" title="" alt="" /></div><div><p class="story-tags"> <a href="http://www.washington.edu/news/category/engineering/" rel="category tag">Engineering</a> | <a href="http://www.washington.edu/news/category/research/" rel="category tag">Research</a> | <a href="http://www.washington.edu/news/category/blog/" rel="category tag">UW Today blog</a> </p>
<p class="date">September 27, 2018</p>
<nav id="mobile-relative" />
<div id="attachment_56293" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/uw-s3-cdn/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2018/01/04132114/collage-memories-in-dna.jpg"><img class="size-full-content wp-image-56293" src="http://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/lunar-library-to-include-photos-books-stored-in-dna.jpg" alt="A collage of family photographs" width="750" height="448" /></a></p>
<p class="wp-caption-text">A selection of images submitted to the #MemoriesInDNA project.<span class="wp-media-credit">University of Washington</span></p>
</div>
<p>People who have submitted photos to the <a href="http://www.washington.edu/news/2018/01/24/memoriesindna-project/">#MemoriesInDNA project</a> have selected images of family members, favorite places and tasty food that will be preserved for years in the form of synthetic DNA. Now this collection — which currently contains more than 3,000 images and is still growing — will be headed to the final frontier: space.</p>
<div id="attachment_58991" class="wp-caption alignright"><img class="size-medium wp-image-58991" src="http://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/lunar-library-to-include-photos-books-stored-in-dna-1.jpg" alt="analog microfiche on thin sheets of nickel with a dime for scale" width="300" height="200" /></p>
<p class="wp-caption-text">The Lunar Library will also contain pages stored as <a href="https://www.astrobotic.com/2018/5/15/arch-mission-foundation-partners-with-astrobotic-to-launch-historic-lunar-library" target="_blank">analog microfiche on thin sheets of nickel</a> (dime for scale). The team is still working on how the DNA contents of this library will be stored.<span class="wp-media-credit">Arch Mission Foundation</span></p>
</div>
<p>The <a href="https://archmission.org/">Arch Mission Foundation</a>, which creates archives that can survive for a long time in space, <a href="http://www.prweb.com/releases/the_arch_mission_foundation_announces_digital_data_stored_in_dna_added_to_lunar_library_creating_groundbreaking_archive_of_knowledge_on_the_moon/prweb15795934.htm">announced today</a> that it will be partnering with researchers at the University of Washington, Microsoft and Twist Bioscience to include media stored in DNA in its newest shipment, which is destined to go to the moon in less than two years.</p>
<p>Researchers at the <a href="http://misl.cs.washington.edu/">Molecular Information Systems Lab</a> at the University of Washington and Microsoft plan to provide both the #MemoriesInDNA project and a DNA archive of e-books for this mission. The Arch Mission Foundation’s <a href="https://archmission.org/whatsnext/">Lunar Library</a> will also include instructions for how to sequence DNA and how to access the contents of the archive.</p>
<p>To prepare the DNA for its life in space, the researchers have been developing new methods to package and protect the information it stores.</p>
<p>“Sending DNA into space is a great opportunity for us to make our storage system more robust,” said <a href="https://www.cs.washington.edu/people/faculty/luisceze">Luis Ceze</a>, a professor in the UW’s Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. “How can we protect the DNA so that it will still be readable thousands of years into the future?”</p>
<div id="attachment_59012" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="size-full-content wp-image-59012" src="http://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/lunar-library-to-include-photos-books-stored-in-dna-2.jpg" alt="Group shot of the Molecular Information Systems Lab" width="750" height="500" /></p>
<p class="wp-caption-text">Researchers at the Molecular Information Systems Lab plan to provide both the #MemoriesInDNA project and a DNA archive of e-books for this mission.<span class="wp-media-credit">Dennis Wise/University of Washington</span></p>
</div>
<p>Storing electronic data in DNA molecules saves a lot of storage space. Data centers require acres of land and account for <a href="https://datacenters.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/DataCenterEnergyReport2016_0.pdf">nearly 2 percent of the total electricity consumption</a> in the United States, but DNA molecules can store information millions of times more compactly using less energy.</p>
<p>“DNA is so dense that we can store a lot of information in a single gram,” said Ceze. “This is huge because room is so limited in space missions.”</p>
<p>The basic process converts digital data’s strings of ones and zeroes into the four basic building blocks of DNA sequences: adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine. The team is working with <a href="http://www.twistbioscience.com/">Twist Bioscience</a> to create synthetic DNA molecules in a lab. This DNA doesn’t come from living organisms. Instead, it is synthesized from scratch base by base (letter by letter).</p>
<p>In space, stray cosmic rays could break DNA strands, making them unreadable. So Ceze and his team have been working on methods to ensure that they can still decode all the information, even if some of the DNA degrades.</p>
<p>The first method, called physical redundancy, involves adding multiple copies of each strand of DNA to the archive. So if one copy is destroyed, there are still many other copies with the same information. The team is considering adding billions of copies of each strand to account for degradation over time, Ceze said.</p>
<p>The second method, called <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.4079.pdf">logical redundancy</a>, attaches information about the data within the DNA itself, like adding information about how two puzzle pieces go together. That way if all copies of a DNA strand go missing, the researchers can piece together what was lost and still get all of the data.</p>
<p>For example, to store two numbers — two and three — researchers would also store the information that two plus three equals five. So if something happened to the number two, the numbers five and three would still exist. That logic could be reversed to conclude that the missing information is five minus three — or two.</p>
<p>Now that the team is working with the Arch Mission Foundation, it has a strict deadline to finalize all packaging and storage plans: The Lunar Library is expected to be <a href="https://archmission.org/whatsnext/">delivered to the surface of the moon by 2020</a>.</p>
<p>“We’re proud that this partnership with Arch continues to push the boundaries of what’s possible in increasingly exciting ways and remarkable directions,” said collaborator <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/kstrauss/">Karin Strauss</a>, a senior researcher at Microsoft and a UW affiliate associate professor of computer science and engineering. “This is an incredibly exciting project and we have a great multidisciplinary team working on it: coding theorists, computer architects, engineers and molecular biologists, all coming together to make this new technology a reality.”</p>
<div id="attachment_59008" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="size-full-content wp-image-59008" src="http://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/lunar-library-to-include-photos-books-stored-in-dna-3.jpg" alt="The moon as seen from space" width="750" height="561" /></p>
<p class="wp-caption-text">An image of the moon (top right) that is included in the #MemoriesInDNA project.<span class="wp-media-credit">University of Washington #MemoriesInDNA</span></p>
</div>
<p>For more details about how to include your own images in the #MemoriesInDNA project, visit the <a href="http://memoriesindna.com/">project website</a> or email <a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a>. <em>Note: To be included in the DNA image collection, photographs cannot be copyrighted by any other party and must be free of violent or inappropriate content. The image dataset will be preserved in DNA indefinitely and shared with researchers worldwide.</em></p>
<p>###</p>
<p>For more information, contact <a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a> or visit the #MemoriesInDNA Project website: <a href="http://memoriesindna.com/">MemoriesInDNA.com</a>.</p>
<p> <small>Tag(s): <a href="http://www.washington.edu/news/tag/college-of-engineering/" rel="tag">College of Engineering</a> • <a href="http://www.washington.edu/news/tag/luis-ceze/" rel="tag">Luis Ceze</a> • <a href="http://www.washington.edu/news/tag/molecular-information-systems-lab/" rel="tag">Molecular Information Systems Lab</a> • <a href="http://www.washington.edu/news/tag/paul-g-allen-school-of-computer-science-engineering/" rel="tag">Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering</a></small></p>
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