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Comment by magic_beans | Hacker News Reader

I read the article, but I'm still quite confused. How exactly did they "insert" a computer image into living bacteria?? Do they mean they have stored binary code in the bacteria?? Or did they just physically create a fine image somewhere in the bacteria???

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They inserted the binary code in the dna using CRISPR and CAS-9

they store the data in the dna, they encode pixels using ATGC, and re-sequence. But they only have one population of bacteria that contain all of the same data.

I don't know much about how DNA works, but by inserting ATGC sequences, does that not mess up the bacteria's replication process or something? How would the cell 'read' this encoded gif in the DNA? Would it try to build a protein because of it, or would it ignore the sequence? Do cells usually have a checksum-type of functionality to detect if their DNA is valid/unmutated? The article itself didn't make any mention, but could there possibly be negative impacts to the cell hosting this data by having its DNA altered?

DNA of many organisms has "dead" sequences that currently don't do anything, but still get copied/replicated. (or are only activated under certain circumstances, which even can be programmed in some sense by adding specific other sequences around them)

Right I'm no biologist, but my understanding is that there's vast amount of dna that doesn't really do anything (doesn't encode any proteins). I don't remember why... maybe it used to do stuff a long time ago.

You are thinking of introns. Their function is still not very well-known. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intron#Biological_functions_an...

In order for proteins to be produced, there is usually a very specific start/stop sequence that has to be present in order for the mechanism to take action.

Most likely this is just "junk" DNA that has no physical manifestation.

As for reading the picture, it is only seen when they extract the DNA and use methods of sequencing to produce the image, meaning it will only show the little gif when analyzed the way it was designed for.

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