Keep it forever
The perfect "time capsule" has been discovered
Denis Peredelsky, Rossiyskaya Gazeta
American artist Joe Davis, who collaborates with the biological laboratory of Harvard University, said that he managed to discover an ideal "time capsule" that will allow millions of years to preserve data about human civilization.
The study is published on the bioRxiv preprint website (Davis et al., In vivo multi-dimensional information-keeping in Halobacterium salinarum), and the authoritative scientific journal Science briefly tells about it. The publication emphasizes that Davis has no biological education. However, it has been significantly helping biologists for many years. In particular, Joe Davis is looking for the perfect "time capsule".
"He wants to record the history of mankind, which could be preserved for many centuries until it is read by followers of the Homo Sapiens species on Earth or intelligent aliens," writes Science. "Davis believes that he has finally managed to find the right material – this is the DNA of a strange microbe that lives in rock salt deposits."
According to Davis, this "living archive", protected by salt and updated by the microbe itself, will be able to exist for hundreds of millions of years. We are talking about a microorganism of the species Halobacterium salinarum (Hsal), which is often called "extraterrestrial" because of its specificity. This microbe is almost impossible to kill, it is highly resistant to salt. In addition, Hsal has an average of 25 backups of each of its chromosomes.
This microbe is able to withstand prolonged drought, extreme temperatures and intense radiation. He can live in a vacuum for a very long time. As part of the experiment, Davis exposed him to poisonous gas used to sterilize laboratory equipment. Hsal withstood this without visible consequences.
His only weak point is his inability to resist fresh water, which literally blows up his cells. But this microbe becomes virtually immortal when immersed in a salty environment.
(A) Pink salt crystals obtained from a supersaturated solution with Halobacterium salinarum. (B) Phase-contrast images of Halobacterium salinarum cells between salt crystals. The size of the ruler is 5 microns. Figure from the article in bioRxiv – VM.
Davis and his colleagues claim that they can encode information in the DNA of this microbe. Previously, other researchers have evaluated the potential of storing information in DNA. It was found that about 300 megabytes of data can fit in the nucleus of a human cell. If the DNA carrier is extremely hardy, then the information, by human standards, can be stored for a very long time.
"If you want to store data for a long time, then the best way to do this may be to store it inside cells and use the cellular mechanism for DNA self–repair," says Davis. "Such organisms can reproduce their cells quite comfortably and economically without outside interference."
Davis' idea was supported by Jeff Nival, a biological engineer from the University of Washington in Seattle. He has been studying the problem of storing data in DNA for a long time. According to him, the mentioned microbe can become "an excellent application for archival storage for millions of years."
"If all other life is destroyed on Earth, and this microbe is the only thing left, then perhaps the information embedded in it will be able to spread by itself," Jeff Nivala believes.
By the way, Davis already has experience in this field. In 1987, by order of one of the companies, he encoded the image of a female figure in the DNA of living bacteria of the species Escherichia coli. This experience is now widely referred to as the first successful experimental demonstration of the possibility of storing data in DNA.
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