Posts by Mat 6

Altered carbon: Boffins automate DNA storage with decent density – but lousy latency

Natural DNA has 4 nucleotides ATGC at any position so rather than base 2 (binary) it encodes in Base 4 (Quaternary). Hachimoji DNA for example has 8 nucleotides ATGCPZBS so goes to base 8. This is without additional modifications. ASCII in binary each letter takes 8 electrons in base 8 it would take 3 nucleotides. Physically DNA is several orders of magnitude larger then electrons on a HDD but multiple possible outcomes at each position increase its storage density.

Then DNA is also able to pack itself together in 3D incredibly tightly. Each of our nuclei fits 3 billion nucleotides into a space just 6 microns across around 113 cubic microns. And that packing still allows for read write access.

Belgian brewery lays 3.2km beer pipeline

Re: location,Location,Location!

De Halve Maan is the last brewery left inside the historic city limits of Brugge and make a big deal of this in their advertising. Strangely as central Brugge is a UNESCO World Heritage Centre they were reluctant to allow a modern bottling plant to be built next to the brewery. Solution, build the plant outside the city with the rest of the light industry and take the beer to the plant.

I recommend trying the Straffe Hendrik Quadruple 11% ABV and extremely drinkable