How much information can DNA hold and can other information be written on it?

Would it be possible for non-biological information to be stored on DNA? For example, could a message or an entire book be written or stored on our DNA? I know DNA holds information on countless genetic factors, but is it possible that other kinds of data could be stored or recorded? And if it could, how much information could you hold on it? In terms of maybe computer bytes, entire libraries, or some other unit of reference?|||The human genome is about 3.2 billion bases. Since there are four bases, you could encode in binary, assigning one of four values (00, 01, 10, 11) to each base, and assembling a string. Since a byte is eight bits, you could get the equivalent of about 800 megabytes into the human genome. Out technology for assembling such strings does not exist. We can assemble sentence length strings, but lack the ability to put them in order. The largest such effort was a synthetic bacterial genome, mimicking a bacterial genome of 1.15 million bases -- slightly less than 300 kilobytes.|||%26gt; How much information can DNA hold


2 bits per base pair





%26gt; can other information be written on it?


Yes. Any digital information you want.





%26gt; Would it be possible for non-biological information to be stored on DNA?


Yes





%26gt; For example, could a message or an entire book be written or stored on our DNA?


Yes





%26gt; how much information could you hold on it?


How long is string?





%26gt; In terms of maybe computer bytes


A human diploid genome is about 1.5 gigabytes, which is about the same storage as two CD-ROMs. This gives a whole new meaning to having the latest 2-Disc set of Olivia Newton-John.|||I would say that theoretically it is possible. The same way that binary code uses zeros and ones to code information, you could use 4 letters of DNA bases to do the same thing. You won't be able to insert large chucks of foreign DNA into a living organism but you could make the DNA and store it in the tube. But the problem is that this way of storing information is not very practical, every time you need to retrieve the information you would have to sequence your DNA and there is always possibility of mutations or mistakes