Dark DNA: The missing matter at the heart of nature
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23731680-200-dark-dna-the-missing-matter-at-the-heart-of-nature/ Nice discussion of the implications of difficult to sequence bits of the genome (eg highly GC rich regions)
Sampling DNA From a 1K-Year-Old…Manuscript
https://www.theAtlantic.com/science/archive/2017/08/the-secret-life-of-illuminated-manuscripts-as-told-in-dna/536172/ As reported from a unsubmitted preprint. Pot. #privacy implications
QT:{{”
Remarkably, the authors say they extracted all this DNA without destroying even a tiny piece of parchment. All they needed were the crumbs from rubbing the book with erasers, which conservationists routinely use to clean manuscripts. The authors report their findings in a preprint that has not yet been peer-reviewed, though they plan to submit it to a scientific journal.”
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New life for old bones https://www.sciencemag.org/content/349/6246/358.summary An explosion in ancient DNA research. Water & heat hard on DNA, creating a northern bias
[After a long career] Alexander Rich Dies at 90; Confirmed #DNA’s Double Helix
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/06/us/alexander-rich-dies-at-90-confirmed-dnas-double-helix.html Helped unravel Z-DNA & RNA structure
Half a Million DVDs in Your #DNA: Nice writeup of Goldman et al paper, highlighting 3X density incr. to >2 PB / g DNA
http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2013/01/half-million-dvds-your-dna
Very interesting discussion outside of science about the potential of storing large quantities of archival data on DNA. The statistic is that you can store a little more than 2 petabytes in a gram of DNA. This is actually cost effective relative to magnetic tape if one wants to do storage for >500 years. However one imagines that as the price of DNA sequencing and synthesis goes down this will become more favorable, perhaps being reasonable for archival storage in the ~50 year regimen. One of the issues with DNA storage, of course, is the lack of random access and the inability to rewrite over already stored media. But for long-term archival storage DNA is considerably more stable than the magnetic storage on tape or disk.
http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2013/01/half-million-dvds-your-dna http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v494/n7435/full/nature11875.html