"I can hear DNA on the internet." No, it's not Philip K. Dick's facebook status: it's what you could say too, listening to the broadcast of an entire human genome online. A project that's already started, and is going on right now.
The fantastic folk over at DNA-Rainbow have rendered the entire DNA code in audio form and are livestreaming it from their site 24/7. It's not a sound file or a download, it's a live broadcast (thinking about it, probably the "livest" thing ever to be broadcast) of a computer reading out the code, and at three characters per second it will take twenty three and a half years to complete. It will run all the time until 2032. That's how much information is carried in almost every cell in your body.
Katrin and Jens Bierkandt are the embodiment of cutting-edge - a biotechnologist and an internet developer, their powers combined to communicate the advances of science to the masses of the public. Their previous project, the DNA-Rainbow, rendered the entire thing as a four-color picture the public could see patterns in. (Well, five colors when you count the grey for bits we don't have info for yet - exactly the sort of information anyone can gain from these projects).
We're just waiting for someone to stick a drum and bass line on the broadcast. You've got the heart of a total techno hit right there, and the fact that it's driven by pure science and internet-juice just makes it that much more awesome.
Posted by Luke McKinney.
DNA Radio http://www.dna-rainbow.org/dna-radio.html
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/03/dna-radio--the.html
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