The device is made up of a thin film of salmon DNA that has been impregnated with silver atoms, then sandwiched between two electrodes. When UV light is shone onto the system, the atoms cluster together into nanoparticles.

Subsequently, when no or little voltage is applied to the electrodes, only a low electrical current is able to travel through the UV-irradiated DNA. This is the equivalent of the device’s "off" state. Because the material is unable to hold a charge under a high electrical field, however, once the voltage exceeds a certain threshold, a higher current is able to travel through the DNA. This represents the "on" state.

These changes in conductivity were found to be irreversible – once the device has initially been set to either "on" or "off" it stays that way, regardless of what voltages are subsequently applied. Even after up to 30 hours, it retains its conductivity.

The scientists are now hoping that their discovery could lead to new techniques for the design of optical storage devices.

This isn’t the first time that DNA has been suggested for such applications. Researchers at Imperial College London have created logic gates using DNA and bacteria, while American scientists have genetically engineered the bacterium E. coli to coax its DNA into computing the solution to a classic mathematical puzzle.

One of the things that our brains excel at is the ability to recognize what things are, even when presented with an incomplete set of data. If we know only that an animal is sold in pet stores and stuffs food in its cheeks, for instance, we can be pretty certain that the animal in question is a hamster. Now, for the first time ever, researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have created a DNA-based artificial neural network that can do the same thing … albeit on a very basic level. They believe that it could have huge implications for the development of true artificial intelligence.

The neural network is made up of just four artificial neurons, as opposed to the human brain’s 100 billion real ones.

To test the network, the scientists played a game with it. That game started with the network being trained to "know" four scientists, each one identifiable by a unique combination of yes/no answers to the same four questions (such as "Is the scientist British?"). Human players then chose one of those scientists, and provided the network with an incomplete set of the identifying answers. They did this by dropping DNA strands that were programmed to correspond to those answers, into water in a test tube that contained the neurons.

Communicating through fluorescent signals, the network would then either correctly identify the chosen scientist, it would indicate that it didn’t have enough data to identify just one scientist, or it would state that the data didn’t match any of the scientists.

This was possible because of the manner in which the added strands of DNA paired with the strands already present in the network. This, in turn, was determined by whether or not the sequences programmed into both strands complimented one another.

It should be noted that the network took eight hours to come up with each of its responses, and that new DNA strands had to be created for each game. Still, the Caltech team state that the technology could ultimately be used for creating biochemical systems with artificial intelligence, which could revolutionize fields such as medicine, chemistry, and biological research.

While scientists have long had the ability to edit individual genes, it is a slow, expensive and hard to use process. Now researchers at Harvard and MIT have developed technologies, which they liken to the genetic equivalent of the find-and-replace function of a word processing program, that allow them to make large-scale edits to a cell’s genome. The researchers say such technology could be used to design cells that build proteins not found in nature, or engineer bacteria that are resistant to any type of viral infection.

DNA consists of long strings of "letters" (A, C, G and T) – or nucleotides – that code for specific amino acids. The genetic code consists of three-letter ‘words’ called codons, which are formed from a sequence of three nucleotides, such as ACT, CAG. The new technology is possible because all living organisms use the same genetic code to translate those letters into amino acids, which are then strung together into proteins. While most codons specify an amino acid, there are a few that tell the cell when to stop adding amino acids to a protein chain. It was one of these "stop" condons that the researchers targeted in their research.

To make edits to the genome of E. coli, they combined a technique previously unveiled in 2009, called multiplex automated genome engineering (MAGE), with a new technology dubbed conjugative assembly genome engineering (CAGE).

Dubbed an "evolution machine" for its ability to accelerate targeted change in living cells, MAGE locates specific DNA sequences and replaces them with a new sequence as the cell copies its DNA. This allows scientists to precisely control the types of genetic changes that occur in cells as the targets are replaced, while the rest of the genome remains untouched.

The researchers used MAGE to replace the TAG codon with another stop codon, TAA, in living E. coli cells. They chose the TAG codon because, with just 314 occurrences, it is the rarest in the E. coli genome. To make the process more manageable, they first used MAGE to engineer 32 strains of E. coli, each of which has 10 TAG condons replaced.

To combine those strains and eventually end up with one that has all 314 edits, they then developed CAGE, which allows them to precisely control a naturally occurring process called conjugation that bacteria use to exchange genetic material. The CAGE method resembles a playoff bracket, with the researchers inducing the cells to transfer genes containing TAA condons at increasingly larger scales.

After the first round of CAGE, the researchers had 16 strains, each of which had double the number of TAG edits that it started with. Those 16 strains then went into a second round producing eight strains that once again possessed more TAA codons and fewer TAG. And so on, so at the four strains stage, each had about one quester of the possible TAG substitutions.

Eager to share their findings, the researchers published their results at the semi-final round, but say they believe they are now on track to produce a single combined strain with all 314 of the substitutions.

Because the alterations were done in living cells, the researchers have been able to monitor any potential harmful effects as they appear and current results suggested that the final four strains were healthy, and can survive and reproduce.

The researchers are confident that they will create a single strain in which all TAG codons are eliminated, after which they plan to delete the cell machinery that reads the TAG condon to free it up for a completely new purpose, such as encoding a novel amino acid.

In addition to adding functionality to a cell by encoding for useful new amino acids, George Church, professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, says the technology could also be used to introduce safeguards that prevent cross-contamination between modified organisms and the wild. Additionally, it could be used to establish multi-viral resistance by rewriting code hijacked by viruses. This would be of particular interest to industries that cultivate bacteria, such as the pharmaceuticals and energy industries, where such viruses affect up to 20 percent of cultures resulting in losses in the billions of dollars.

"We’re trying to challenge people to think about the genome as something that’s highly malleable, highly editable," said Harris Wang, a research fellow at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering

Scientists have identified the mechanism responsible for driving the internal clock of almost all living organisms

A group of Cambridge scientists have successfully identified the mechanism that drives our internal 24-hour clock, or circadian rhythm. It occurs not only in human cells, but has also been found in other life forms such as algae, and has been dated back millions of years. Whilst the research promises a better understanding of the problems associated with shift-work and jet-lag, this mechanism has also been proven to be responsible for sleep patterns, seasonal shifts and even the migration of butterflies.

The study from the Institute of Metabolic Science at the University of Cambridge discovered that red blood cells contain this 24-hour rhythm. In the past, scientists assumed this rhythm came from DNA and gene activity but unlike most cells, red blood cells do not contain DNA.

During this study, the Cambridge scientists incubated healthy red blood cells in the dark at body temperature for several days, sampling them at regular intervals. It was discovered that the levels of peroxiredoxins (proteins that are produced in blood), underwent a 24-hour cycle. Virtually all known organisms contain peroxiredoxins.

"The implications of this for health are manifold," said Akhilesh Reddy, lead author of the study. "We already know that disrupted clocks – for example, caused by shift-work and jet-lag – are associated with metabolic disorders such as diabetes, mental health problems and even cancer. By furthering our knowledge of how the 24-hour clock in cells works, we hope that the links to these disorders – and others – will be made clearer. This will, in the longer term, lead to new therapies that we couldn’t even have thought about a couple of years ago."

A second study by scientists working together at the Universities of Edinburgh and Cambridge, and the Observatoire Oceanologique in Banyuls, France, identified a similar 24-hour rhythm in marine algae. Once again, the scientists held a previous belief that the circadian clock was driven by gene activity, but both the algae and the red blood cells proved this theory wrong.

"This groundbreaking research shows that body clocks are ancient mechanisms that have stayed with us through a billion years of evolution," said Andrew Millar of the University of Edinburgh’s School of Biological Sciences. "They must be far more important and sophisticated than we previously realized. More work is needed to determine how and why these clocks developed in people – and most likely all other living things on Earth – and what role they play in controlling our bodies."

The papers "Circadian Clocks in Human Red Blood Cells" and "Circadian Rhythms Persist Without Transcription in a Eukaryote" were published on 27th January 2011 in the journal Nature.

DNA Teleportation Nobel Prize winner Luc Montagnier describes a phenomenon in which DNA emits electromagnetic signals of its own construction, "ghost DNA" that can be mistaken by enzymes as the real deal and replicated in another place. Essentially, it’s DNA teleportation.

A Nobel prize winning scientist who shared the 2008 prize for medicine for his role in establishing the link between HIV and AIDS has stirred up a good deal of both interest and skepticism with his latest experimental results, which more or less show that DNA can teleport itself to distant cells via electromagnetic signals. If his results prove correct, they would shake up the foundations upon which modern chemistry rests. But plenty of Montagnier’s peers are far from convinced.

The full details of Montagnier’s experiments are not yet known, as his paper has not yet been accepted for publication. But he and his research partners have made a summary of his findings available. Essentially, they took two test tubes – one containing a fragment of DNA about 100 bases long, another containing pure water – and isolated them in a chamber that muted the earth’s natural electromagnetic field to keep it from muddying the results. The test tubes were housed within a copper coil emanating a weak electromagnetic field.

Several hours later, the contents of both test tubes were put through polymerase chain reactions to identify any remnants of DNA – a process that subjected the contents to enzymes that would make copies of any DNA fragments they found. According to Montagnier, the DNA was recovered from both tubes even though the second should have only contained water.

Montagnier and his team say this suggests DNA emits its own electromagnetic signals that imprint the DNA’s structure on other molecules (like water). Ostensibly this means DNA can project itself from one cell to the next, where copies could be made – something like quantum teleportation of genetic material, a notion that is spooky on multiple levels.

Naturally, there is plenty of skepticism to go around regarding these findings, ranging from outright dismissal to measured doubt. Indeed, it’s a pretty radical notion: DNA replicating itself through “ghost imprints” rather than the usual cellular processes. More details will emerge when the paper is published in a peer-reviewed journal, as it is likely to be. The findings will then have to be repeated in multiple independent studies to be considered valid, something that will take some time. In the meantime, expect these findings to draw equal parts intrigue and skeptical scrutiny.

Biostorage: Storing Bytes in Bacteria Just one gram of bacteria could store as much information as 450 2,000-gigabyte hard drives in its DNA, a Hong Kong research team says.

E. coli gets a bad rap – probably due to the violent illness it induces – but a group of Chinese University students in Hong Kong have found a novel and potentially reputation-changing use for the bacteria: data storage. The team has devised a way to encrypt and store information in the DNA of bacteria to such an effective degree that they say just one gram of E. coli could store the same amount of data as 450 two-terabyte hard drives.

Biostorage, or the storing of data in living things, is nascent but not new, having been around for about a decade. But earlier efforts at encoding data into DNA have been incremental – for instance, a few years back a team of Japanese researchers encoded Einstein’s relativity equation into the DNA of bacteria, demonstrating that it was possible but otherwise not pushing the field forward.

Three years later the strides taken by the Hong Kong team are far more significant, showing that not only text but also images, music, and video can be stored within cells. The team devised a means of compressing data into chunks that can be placed in different cells and mapped so that it can be easily located later, much as CPUs chop and store data in fragments. They’ve even developed a three-tier security system that allows them to encrypt the data in an unhackable way, making data stored on their bacterial systems impervious to cyber threats.

In theory, bacterial biostorage systems could hold vast amounts of data in very small spaces, and since the bacteria keep replicating they could feasibly store data reliably for millennia. But the applications don’t end there; the team is exploring ways their techniques could be used to encode extra information into organisms like genetically modified crops to create a sort of “bio barcode” that would identify the provenance of a certain strain of GM vegetable or help track the spread of certain GM crops designs.

Zombie DNA Some of that DNA is dead. And some could be undead.

Perhaps the only thing scarier than the living dead is finding out that they’re already inside the house. Geneticists recently found that non-coding genes — some of the many dotting the human genome — can rise from the dead. When they do they can cause problems, including one of the most common forms of muscular dystrophy.

Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy, or FSHD, is known to be genetic and inheritable in a rather straightforward way; it affects every person who inherits the gene. But its root cause was not understood until a paper, published Thursday in the journal Science, outlined how a piece of junk DNA ("non-coding DNA" is the politically correct term), thought to be disabled, can spring back to life, causing serious problems in some cases.

Researchers pinpointed the region of the genome where the problem arises decades ago, a place where the zombie gene was repeated several times over but where transcription was faulty for lack of a specific section of sequence. Because it was missing this code, researchers thought it to be defunct, but it turns out a mutation can add this sequence back into the mix, causing the gene to resurrect itself and affect muscles of the face, shoulders, and arms.

The discovery is disconcerting — no one likes to think about the fact that any of the many, many junk genes within each of us might rise from the genetic grave to trigger some kind of ailment — but the realization that such a mechanism causes FSHD opens up a new avenue of treatment for illnesses as well. If zombie genes can cause muscular dystrophy, there might be other as-yet untreatable illnesses that are cause by similar mechanisms. In the case of FSHD, researchers should be able to find a way to target that zombie gene and make sure it stays dead. According to everything we know about zombies, a blunt object delivered forcefully to the cranium should do the trick.

Dattoos would be printed onto the user’s skin, and would identify the user via their DNA

Five years ago, Frog Design founder Hartmut Esslinger envisioned a technology that “could influence notions of community, identity, and connectivity with minimal impact on the physical environment.” Using an online design portal, users would select and try out a customized electronic processing device that they would then print onto their own skin. The DNA Tattoo, or Dattoo, could include printable input/output tools such as a camera, microphone, or laser-loudspeaker – it would be up to the user, as would the Dattoo’s aesthetics. Most intriguingly, it would capture its wearer’s DNA, to ensure an intimate user/machine relationship.

Conceived for the 2005 Forrester Consumer Forum, the Dattoo was a response to the still-increasing trend of self-expression through connectivity technology – in a sense, you could call it the ultimate smart phone skin. The idea was to “realize a state of constant, seamless connectivity and computability requir[ing] the convergence of technology and self.” This meant that the body itself would need to become the interface, and would supply the required energy. Because Dattoos would largely replace three-dimensional tools such as smart phones or laptops, the environment would be spared the costs of producing, transporting and disposing of those items.

Users in different geographical regions would be linked by common interests, and could communicate with one another, through their Dattoos. The unique DNA signatures would allow individuals to be readily identifiable, in a sense almost projecting users Second Life-style into cyberspace. Software would take a liquid form, in keeping with the Dattoo’s “organic computer” philosophy.

Despite evoking creepy Matrix-like images of permanent implants, Dattoos would actually be temporary and minimally-invasive. They could even be applied to clothing or other objects, instead of the skin. At the end of the day, they would simply be washed off. The next day, depending on what the user planned to do, they could order up and apply a new one.

Besides DNA-reading/identification, cameras, mikes and speakers, Esslinger’s ultimate vision was one of Dattoos that included nanosensors and interactive Braille-like "touch reading,” pattern and image recognition, self-learning and educational applications, living materials that change shape and feel, flexible OLED displays, bionic nano chips and cyborg components.

In the past five years, we’ve definitely gotten closer to Dattoos becoming more than just a concept. An example from this year is the Skinput, an experimental system that allows users to control electronic devices via a display projected onto their arm.

DNA Using DNA-based logic gates that behave like their electronic equivalent, we could someday engineer complex injectable computers that could monitor and treat our bodies from the inside

We’ve got computers that run on a single iodine molecule and transistors made of just a handful of atoms, so why not create electronic components out of tiny strands of DNA? A team of researchers at Hebrew University has for the first time created DNA-based logic gates that could lead to tiny injectable bio-computers capable of making simple calculations inside the body.

Formed from short DNA strands and their complements, the DNA logic gates closely mimic their electronic counterparts by representing one of two states – like the zeros and ones of binary code – depending on the presence of an input. In tests, they modeled a DNA version of an XOR logic gate that generates an output when one of two inputs is present, but not when both or neither is present. By design, the DNA logic gate fluoresced when one of two inputs was present, and accurately stopped fluorescing when both inputs were present.

This kind of reverse biomimicry could have multiple applications, particularly in the realm of drug delivery, possibly even leading to preemptive drugs that live in the body waiting identify and deal with potential problems. Previous attempts at DNA-based computing were too limited to accomplish such a feat, as their DNA strands could be used for a function only once. But the Hebrew University team claims its strands reform after each step.

That means not only that the gates can be used over and over again, but that they can be wired in series, each one creating a new output that serves as the input for the next gate, the basis for complex calculations. The gates would then go back to their usual state, ready to process the next – possibly different – input.

The result could be a new breed of smart drugs that are injected into the body before an injury occurs, waiting to be triggered by enzymes or other catalysts associated with a particular injury or illness. That means – in theory – we might someday be able to create DNA-based computing systems that diagnose and treat common medical problems from within our bodies without our ever knowing it.

If figuring out how to quickly sequence genomes was but the first small step for genetics, Craig Venter has gone ahead and made a giant leap for the discipline. The J. Craig Venter Institute announced today that it has created the world’s first synthetic cell, boasting a completely synthetic chromosome produced by a machine.

“This is the first self-replicating species we’ve had on the planet whose parent is a computer,” Venter said in a press conference.

The biological breakthrough could have myriad applications, as it essentially opens the door to engineered biology that is completely manipulated by laboratory scientists. The researchers are already planning to create a specially engineered algae designed to trap carbon dioxide and convert it to biofuel. Other applications could include medicine, environmental cleanup, and energy production.

Though a bacteria cell was the final product in this particular experiment, eukaryotic yeast was a critical player in the process. Venter and company synthesized the genome of the bacterium M. mycoides by taking short strains of DNA (contemporary machines can only assemble short sequences at a time) and inserting them into yeast, whose enzymes have a keen ability to repair DNA and combine the short strains together.

The yeast first linked the shorter snippets (just over 1,000 base pairs each) together into longer 10,000 base pair strands. The longer strands were removed, further combined in groups of ten and put back into yeast to connect 100,000 base pair strands. After three rounds of this, the team had produced the full genome, stretching more than a million base pairs. To distinguish their synthetic genome from those found in nature, special “watermark” sequences were added to the DNA so that it won’t be mistaken for a natural species.

The synthetic genome was then transplanted into another type of bacteria, Mycoplasma capricolum, where the synthetic genome started producing new proteins. The capricolum’s original genome was either destroyed by M. mycoides’ enzymes or lost during cell replication. Either way, as the cells multiplied, cells were produced borne solely of the synthesized genome and there it was in the petri dish: the world’s first synthetic cells built from wholly synthesized DNA.

How to Build a Synthetic M. Mycoides Cell

“Every component in the cell comes from the synthetic genome,” Venter said. “This cell, its lineage is a computer. But this cell is simply a proof of concept to get to the minimal understanding of the synthetic genome.”

Not everyone is thrilled with the achievement, however. Upon the announcement, some researchers questioned the validity of the term "synthetic cell" because though the genome was fabricated by computer, the process merely modified existing life rather than created it from scratch. There are also plenty ethical – and legal – ramifications to such a technological advance that will no doubt be argued in coming months.

What is not up for dispute is that Venter and company have carried out a serious technological feat in stringing together a million nucleotide base pairs to create a complete genome in the lab. Not only that, but they did it accurately enough that the cell accepted the DNA.

"Probably 99% of our experiments have failed," Venter said of the decades-long journey to this point. "This was a debugging, problem solving process from the beginning, because there was no recipe."

Now that there’s a recipe, Venter and company want to get cooking. Having strung 1 million base pairs into a coherent genome, Venter said the next step is algae, as algal genomes generally contain just under 2 million base pairs. By comparison, the human genome contains more than 3 billion pairs, so don’t look for synthetic mammals any time soon.