Indian-born scientist developing coated DVD's that can make hard disks obsolete
Sydney, Jul 8 (ANI): An Indian born scientist in the US is working on developing DVD's which can be coated with a light -sensitive protein and can store up to 50 terabytes (about 50,000 gigabytes) of data.
Professor V Renugopalakrishnan of the Harvard Medical School in Boston has claimed to have developed a layer of protein made from tiny genetically altered microbe proteins which could store enough data to make computer hard disks almost obsolete.
"What this will do eventually is eliminate the need for hard drive memory completely," ABC quoted Prof. Renugopalakrishnan, a BSc in Chemistry from Madras University and PhD in biophysics from Columbia/State University of New York, Buffalo, New York as saying.
The light-activated protein is found in the membrane of a salt marsh microbe Halobacterium salinarum and is also known as bacteriorhodopsin (bR). It captures and stores sunlight to convert it to chemical energy. When light shines on bR, it is converted to a series of intermediate molecules each with a unique shape and colour before returning to its 'ground state'.
Since the intermediates generally only last for hours or days, Prof Renugopalakrishnan and his colleagues modified the DNA that produces bR protein to produce an intermediate that lasts for more than several years. They also engineered the bR protein to make its intermediates more stable at the high temperatures generated by storing terabytes of data.
This, they said, ultimately paved the way for a binary system to store data.
"The ground state could be the zero and any of the intermediates could be the one," he said.
Prof Renugopalakrishnan now opines that the protein layer could also allow DVDs and other external devices to store terabytes of information.
The new protein-based DVD will have advantages over current optical storage devices such as the Blue-ray as well, because the information is stored in proteins that are only a few nanometres across.
"The protein-based DVDs will be able to store at least 20 times more than the Blue-ray and eventually even up to 50,000 gigabytes (about 50 terabytes) of information. You can pack literally thousands and thousands of those proteins on a media like a DVD, a CD or a film or whatever," he said.
The high-capacity storage devices will be essential to the defence, medical and entertainment industries.
"You have a compelling need that is not going to be met with the existing magnetic storage technology," he added.
However, there's a flip side to it also.
"Science can be used and abused. Making large amounts of information so portable on high-capacity removable storage devices will make it easier for information to fall into the wrong hands. Information can be stolen very quickly. One has to have some safeguards there," he added.
The findings were presented at the International Conference on Nanoscience and Nanotechnology in Brisbane this week. (ANI)
My penis is hard with anticipation for that to hit mainstream.
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Usually it's the people WATCHING the DVDs that are releasing protein...
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when they stand for nothing? If they deserve life, LET THEM STAND FOR THEMSELVES.
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They'll watch you die to save their lives. They will not stand here by your side.
Interesting, but I guess that's at LEAST 5-7 years away from release of actual products.
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Why do they have to specify that the scientist was born in India in the title? How is that relevant to anything at all?
It's from the India section of Yahoo news. They probably put that in there so people looking for Indian news don't say "wtf do we care about protien discs?" or the like.
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In other yahoo news today, it seems the home of an Indian-born man named Venkatesan was vandalized. Witnesses at the scene were quoted as saying that they had never seen so much anti-bacterial soap in one place before in their lives...
Jem's Law (inspired by Godwin's Law) -
As an online discussion on the topic of governmental authority grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Orwell's "1984" approaches 1.
There is a differnce between Hentai and Anime. I am sure you were just poking fun but I'll make it clear anyway, if not, maybe it's better continue watching baseball.
Seriously though. Most(if not all) hentai are in bad taste and low budget, I can't stand it. There are some rare gems with an actual story and crucial elements but sadly those are too few to fill much space with.
