There was a program on bbc1 yesterday,

I cannot remember all details has I had a friend around who never stops chatting.

 

There was a segment about some band who have managed to put all there music to dna, it was something about first turning it to binary code then coding it to C,A.T,G, IT then went on saying we could encode all human knowledge into dna.

 

This made me wonder if we encoded all human knowledge to dna, could we then theoretically seed a planet with this encoded dna, and whether these new life forms would have all our knowledge within them,

If this was possible in our future to seed another planet with this dna, would they follow the same path as humanity thinking they where creating their own history, when all the time their history was already encoded into their dna by us.

 

 

 

JUST found this article encoding all human knowledge into a forest,

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/one-day-a-forest-could-store-all-of-humanitys-knowledge

 

It amazes me some of the wonders we do find in plant/animal dna that advances our technology/science.

Perhaps we have more encoded into our dna than we realize.

Edited September 18, 201510 yr by sunshaker

You can encode information in DNA in the same way that you can tattoo instructions into someone. Just because they are carrying the information doesn't mean that they are going to act on it or, even be able to read it, necessarily.

There's no reason to think such encoded DNA would represent a viable life form

I read a sci-fi story along these lines although beetles were used instead.

 

A knowledge repository, your hypothetical descendants might someday decode(with proper sequencing assuming mutation does not make it unreadable).

On a practical note, how would you gather "all human knowledge" for example, how would you capture the fact that I think the takeaway meal I just has was OK, but had too much parsley in it?

 

It might be more realistic to "download" the internet onto DNA

estimates vary but that's something like 10 zetabytes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zettabyte

 

 

Stored on DNA that's' remarkably little volume (though it's a pig to read)

"With recently demonstrated technology using DNA computing for storage, one yottabyte of capacity would require a volume between 0.003 and 1 cubic meter, depending on number of redundant backup copies desired and the storage density: "

from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yottabyte

There's no reason to think such encoded DNA would represent a viable life form

but it could be spliced into dna that could "represent a viable life form/forms",

 

Perhaps this as already happened on earth and what we see as "junk dna" in all species, may when we are able to put together and read will someday answer all the questions of life universe and everything.

 

 

The amount of noncoding DNA varies greatly among species. For example, over 98% of thehuman genome is noncoding,^[2] while 20% of a typical prokaryote genome is noncoding.^[3]When there is much non-coding DNA, a large proportion appears to have no biological function for the organism

 

 

 

Stored on DNA that's' remarkably little volume (though it's a pig to read)

"With recently demonstrated technology using DNA computing for storage, one yottabyte of capacity would require a volume between 0.003 and 1 cubic meter, depending on number of redundant backup copies desired and the storage density: "

from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yottabyte

DNA seems to be the best option for storage, dna computing also looks promising taking over from silicon, once we are able to read said information at an higher speed.

 

 

"IF" we are not alone in the universe, surely advanced civilizations would of also used Dna for storage,storing all of their knowledge and achievements, and would of seeded many planets with this dna as a record of their being.(we civilized species love our monuments)

Even us humans, if we knew we where in for an extinction event would rally together and what to leave a record of who and what we where, perhaps launching an Ark into space which would more than likely contain dna.

but it could be spliced into dna that could "represent a viable life form/forms",

 

Can it? So-called junk DNA is non-coding, but that's not the same as being non-functional, which is explained further down in the wikipedia article you quoted but did not cite.

Hang on a minute.

On a human scale the three litre estimate for enough DNA to store "everything" is very small.

But packing all that into every single cell of an organism just isn't going to happen.

Hang on a minute.

On a human scale the three litre estimate for enough DNA to store "everything" is very small.

But packing all that into every single cell of an organism just isn't going to happen.

Not a single organism, unless you want to call Earth a single organism,

A few liters of Dna seeded on a planet with the potential to create multiple life forms each encoded with chunks of this stored information that would self produce.

Perhaps some of this information will help decide what form the organism will take, we can look at the ways nature has inspired technology http://www.bloomberg.com/news/photo-essays/2015-02-23/14-smart-inventions-inspired-by-nature-biomimicry

but was it first "technology" that inspired/programmed what we call "nature".

 

Perhaps each organism has a unique set of sequences that when combined together will give us "42 the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything".

Not a single organism, unless you want to call Earth a single organism,

A few liters of Dna seeded on a planet with the potential to create multiple life forms each encoded with chunks of this stored information that would self produce.

Perhaps some of this information will help decide what form the organism will take, we can look at the ways nature has inspired technology http://www.bloomberg.com/news/photo-essays/2015-02-23/14-smart-inventions-inspired-by-nature-biomimicry

but was it first "technology" that inspired/programmed what we call "nature".

 

Perhaps each organism has a unique set of sequences that when combined together will give us "42 the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything".

If we dropped a few litres of DNA onto the surface of an earth-like but uninhabited planet the most likely outcome would be that it was destroyed by sunlight.

If, on the other hand, we dropped a bucket of sea-water into their ocean we might start something more interesting.