Scientists have inserted a GIF of a horse into living bacteria

https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/12/harvard-nature-crispr-cas1-cas2-horse-gif/

by spektom • 9 years ago

55 55 9 years ago

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???

sabujp2• 9 years ago

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.

yazan94• 9 years ago

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?

maskedinvader• 9 years ago

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

wyldfire• 9 years ago

Inspecting for exfil just got a lot harder.

ballenf2• 9 years ago

Seriously, now border & customs agents will have to require unlocking your DNA as well as your phone.

sabujp2• 9 years ago

so storing data on multiple (billions of bacteria). I assume that you would have populations of duplicates and would piece together your entire original dataset (e.g. a tar) using start and end encoding tags? How do you re-sequence multiple populations of bacteria that you just grab from a sample sitting in a -80c freezer? You'd also have to prevent them from modifying their own genome and messing up your data.

kingbirdy• 9 years ago

You could store it redundantly, in a genetic RAID

detaro2• 9 years ago

previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14755429

epmaybe• 9 years ago

Yeah, not to be prude, but this was literally posted yesterday. The actual article, too.

nthcolumn• 9 years ago

Pay-walled science don't you just love it? Why do they bother - it isn't science until you publish IMHO. This is just showing their rich friends.

obstacle1• 9 years ago

I suspect that falsely denouncing paywalled research as "not science" isn't going to work in bringing about the outcome that you want. Probably a strategy without so many scotsmen would work better.

LeifCarrotson• 9 years ago

Here's the image that was encoded:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Muybridge_horse_gall...

iansowinski• 9 years ago

It's iconic photography!

tomswartz07• 9 years ago

Anyone have any info on the amount of data that was encoded?

It looks like it was a low resolution image with 5 frames, so I expect it to be about 1 Kb, max?

searine4• 9 years ago

Nature paper say 2.5 kilobytes of data, and I guessimate a few Kilobases of sequence.

alex_duf2• 9 years ago

How likely is it than storing arbitrary data in a bacteria's DNA would allow it to create something dangerous for humans?

thriftwy• 9 years ago

Approximately like the chance that DNA sequence of a virus, when executed as shell code, will infect your machine.

piyh• 9 years ago

Buy your subscription to Norton Anti-virus 2030 today!

alex_duf2• 9 years ago

The reason I ask is that it seems subsequences of DNA are enough to generate proteins, or other molecules. (am I right? if not anyone who knows biology please correct me)

It doesn't have to be the whole code that's dangerous, what about a section of it?

That still makes it very improbable, but orders of magnitude more than the whole sequence.

cromwellian3• 9 years ago

I gloriously await from teenage hackers 10 years from now release CRISPR viruses/worms that insert GIF meme pranks into the human population germ line, eventually triggering the apocalypse.

It seems our ability to mess stuff up is growing faster than our ability to defend against bugs. I shudder to think what happens when sloppy engineering practices or "WannaCry" meet biology. Hey, we've encrypted your germ line, and sterilized you, send Bitcoin to XXXXX to restore your fertility.

ohyes• 9 years ago

Genecoin, cryptocurrency implemented in the human genome. We take a blood sample to check your balance.

edit: putting the bank in blood bank

ghostbrainalpha• 9 years ago

So vampires would suck your blood.... as a way to rob your bank account?

I think we may have a good (trashy) sci-fi novel here.

amyjess• 9 years ago

Then again, I know a lot of childfree people who would pay good money to have CRISPR sterilize them.

I'd say "myself included", but my gender transition will take care of that. Hmm... I wonder if a future version of CRISPR could get my body to produce its own estrogen.

rubatuga3• 9 years ago

Aren’t you just afraid because you don’t really understand how CRISPR works? It’s not a virus or anything, nor is it airborne.

cromwellian3• 9 years ago

No, at a high level I understand how it works. I didn't claim CRISPR is a virus. I'm talking about people using other pathogens to piggyback CRISPR edits.

searine4• 9 years ago

I gloriously await from teenage hackers 10 years from now release CRISPR viruses/worms

You're going to be waiting awhile.

The hard part about biology is that it often doesn't work. To get things working even semi-reliably you need tens of thousands of dollars of sensitive equipment and reagents. Equipment and reagents that would catch the attention of interested authorities if you bought it as an independent.

Computer viruses are the result of a tractable ecosystem and a low cost to participation. Biology is largely untractable, with a tremendous cost of entry.

Yes, CRISPR helps us insert DNA, but it doesn't change all the sensitive steps up to the point of transformation. Even then, CRISPR is limited to the cells being treated.

A custom biological virus is what you are imagining, with the ability to both insert DNA/RNA and with a capsule that protect it during transmission. Unfortunately we are likely centuries away from being able to code a completely custom life form, and even then, the cost and training needed to create such life forms will be cost prohibitive, leaving only corporations and governments the ability to do so.

Giroflex• 9 years ago

Not too many decades ago, computers were also prohibitively expensive and largely only available to corporations and governments.

I don't think we can discard any possibility given the exponential nature of human advancement.

cromwellian3• 9 years ago

I don't think you need a completely custom from scratch lifeform. It seems to me you just have to find a flexible existing pathogen that can tolerate a CRISPR edit sequence tagging a long. Perhaps a virus is too small, maybe some common gut bacteria or fungus can be weaponized.

Admittedly, we're a "long way" from that, but for me, I define "long way" as 20 years. Centuries? Seems way past the singularity horizon for me. I think it's really hard to say at this point something is too hard to be solved in 100 years unless it's something that defies the laws of physics, or takes ungodly amounts of mass or energy.

cabalamat2• 9 years ago

They should encode some music on it and then watch the RIAA go apeshit trying to track down and kill all the copyright-infringing bacteria.

positivecomment2• 9 years ago

If someone finds some protected data as controversial as AACS encryption key[2] and creates a "fork" of HIV which contains that information, I'm optimistic that we will get a cure for it in a few years.

On a more serious note, I'm not sure, with this kind of power, if we are quickly approaching a Great Filter[4] or not.

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AACS_encryption_key_controvers...

cabalamat2• 9 years ago

I'm not sure, with this kind of power, if we are quickly approaching a Great Filter or not

We're approaching several.

We -- or rather, some members of our species -- are clever enough to build amazingly powerful technologies (nuclear weapons, biotechnology, maybe strong AI), but as a species we seem to often use them unwisely, either because political leaders are power-obsessed (in the case of nuclear weapons), or because some technologies might become able to be harnessed by individuals/groups without much resources (DIY biotechnology).

It's like toddlers playing with matches on a petrol-soaked carpet.

jrs95• 9 years ago

The next big leap: putting Pepe memes in a frog

danso• 9 years ago

If I hadn't seen this tweeted around earlier, I would've guessed this title/story generated by the HNSimulator markov bot.

ineedasername• 9 years ago

So, eventually we can look forward to getting rickrolled by a bout of food poisoning. And maybe get sued for piracy afterwards, for unauthorized duplication and distribution. Unless consideration of fair use is updated to include involuntarily crapping out copies.

vortico• 9 years ago

What does this have to do with the GIF image format? Wouldn't using something other than LZW compression give them a much faster converging restoration rate?

rubatuga3• 9 years ago

Can we stop with the slippery slope arguments? No, CRISPR will not be used be teenage hackers in the future to infect humans and keep them hostage. CRISPR can’t be “spread” or “transmitted” and is a local technique to introduce DNA snippets into the main genome of the organism. And to anyone who thinks that CRISPR could be potentially used to infect humans, this technology is nothing new: viruses have already had DNA editing machinery for millennia, search up retroviruses.

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

positivecomment2• 9 years ago

No, CRISPR will not be used be teenage hackers in the future to infect humans and keep them hostage. CRISPR can’t be “spread” or “transmitted” and is a local technique to introduce DNA snippets into the main genome of the organism

I think most people, if not everyone, already got this.

viruses have already had DNA editing machinery for millennia

But humans never had it. That's probably what creeps everyone out.

Analemma_• 9 years ago

Note that when the popular press worries about the destructive potential of "CRISPR", they don't mean CRISPR specifically. They're using the word as a stand-in for the general trend of the exponentially decreasing cost of genome sequencing and editing techniques which probably, eventually, will reach the level where they can be done by teenage hackers. And that is something that requires concern and attention, even if I don't think it merits panic.

I think you are much too sanguine about this, which I've noticed is a tendency among programmers in general. We're used to a world where bugs always have fixes, and can be patched and the fix spread worldwide instantly, for free. None of these things are true in epidemiology, and it causes us to make really bad metaphors that don't apply in this world. For starters, "responsible disclosure is good" and "security-by-obscurity is bad" are obvious truisms in software but not even remotely true in epidemiology.

viruses have already had DNA editing machinery for millennia, search up retroviruses.

But viruses are subject to evolutionary pressure that puts a ceiling on how bad they can be. Most of the worst human viruses have a "pick two" of 1) airborne 2) highly infectious 3) fatal, because a virus with all 3 burns itself out and can't survive. Engineered organisms do not have this ceiling.

rubatuga3• 9 years ago

To be fair, we do have examples of some superbugs, such as the Spanish Flu in the 1910s, where an influenza virus managed to wipe out a significant portion of the world. It would be considered by most to be airborne, infectious, and fatal. Maybe my optimism results from the fact that a supervirus has never been engineered (which I agree is fallacious), but I don’t think CRISPR, a research technique, even begins to encroach on the topic of genetically engineered superbugs.

goshx• 9 years ago

I'm not sure I understand your argument. The fact that "this technology is nothing new" isn't precisely what proves that it can be potentially used to infect humans?

nvr219• 9 years ago

Okay great, but how did the scientists pronounce it?

JumpCrisscross• 9 years ago

What are the odds this is being used for exfiltrating sensitive data? (Reminds me of a Culture novel, I think Excession, where one character tries to sneak information out of a ship by encoding it into the DNA of bacteria on, essentially, packages.)

ballenf2• 9 years ago

Zero right now, but the future where borders agents require you to unlock your DNA as well as your phone makes for a great sci-fi dystopia.

netheril96• 9 years ago

DNA of which organs should the border agents examine in that future?

gremlinsinc• 9 years ago

When did techcrunch get bought out by Buzzfeed? 'did your head just explode' is such a link-bait-douchy title

Lagged2Death• 9 years ago

Look at my horse. My horse is amazing.

Scientists have inserted a GIF of a horse into living bacteria

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