An easier-to-use technique for storing data in DNA is inspired by our cells 

Published: 30 October 2024
Categories: MIT Tech Review

RSS Feed Source: MIT Technology Review

It turns out that you don’t need to be a scientist to encode data in DNA. Researchers have been working on DNA-based data storage for decades, but a new template-based method inspired by our cells’ chemical processes is easy enough for even nonscientists to practice. The technique could pave the way for an unusual but ultra-stable way to store information. 

The idea of storing data in DNA was first proposed in the 1950s by the physicist Richard Feynman. Genetic material has exceptional storage density and durability; a single gram of DNA can store a trillion gigabytes of data and retain the information for thousands of years. Decades later, a team led by George Church at Harvard University put the idea into practice, encoding a 53,400-word book.

This early approach relied on DNA synthesis—stringing genetic sequences together piece by piece, like beads on a

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Dear Colleague Letter: Microorganism-Mediated Organismal Resilience to Climate Change (MMORCC)

Published: 28 October 2024
Categories: NSF Pgm Announcements

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NSF 25-014

October 28, 2024

Dear Colleagues:

The rapid environmental changes currently underway create unprecedented challenges for nearly all life on earth, underscoring an imminent need for understanding organismal resilience in the face of those challenges. The Division of Integrative Organismal Systems’ (IOS) Organismal Response to Climate Change (ORCC) solicitation supports interdisciplinary research on mechanisms of organismal response to climate change that are contextualized through both an eco-evolutionary lens and a plan for use-inspired applications to better predict and mitigate the effects of a rapidly changing climate on earth’s living systems. Critical to those efforts are microorganisms, including bacteria, archaea, fungi, protists, and viruses. Whether free-living, or through partnerships with a diversity of hosts (e.g. other microorganisms, plants, or animals), microorganisms are ubiquitous, diverse, and functionally significant, persisting in spaces that undergo extreme

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NSF call for IUCRC (Industry-University Cooperative Research Center) Proposals for a Center Pursuing Optical Tissue-mimicking Phantoms for Biomedical Applications

Published: 24 October 2024
Categories: NSF Pgm Announcements

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NSF 25-013

October 24, 2024

Dear Colleagues:

This Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) invites submissions responsive to the Industry-University Cooperative Research Center (IUCRC) program solicitation in the broad topic area of tissue-mimicking phantoms for optical medical devices.

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers (IUCRC) program strives to build long-term partnerships among industry, academia, and government. Leveraging the IUCRC Program the NSF, in partnership with the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), is encouraging efforts to promote productive research, development and dissemination of novel tissue-mimicking phantoms for potential use in the development of future medical devices.

Research and development of tissue-mimicking phantoms as tools that can

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