 |
Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
|
 |
Use Steganography by Printed Arrays of Microbes For Secret Messages!
Steganography by printed arrays of microbes is a unique means of sending secret messages that would have amazed Edgar Allen Poe, who lived his entire life thinking invisible ink was cool.
Manuel Palacios, a chemist at Tufts University in Medford Massachusetts, and his colleagues took a simpler approach by encrypting messages using seven strains of Escherichia coli bacteria. Each one was engineered to produce a different fluorescent protein, which glows in a different colour under the right light.
"We really wanted to use easily observable traits," says Palacios. Techniques such as Venter's require sophisticated equipment to sequence the DNA and unlock the message. "In our case, light-emitting diodes and an iPhone would do," notes Palacios.
Colonies of bacteria are grown in rows of paired spots, every combination of two colours corresponding to a different letter, digit or symbol. For example, two yellow spots signify a 't', whereas an orange and a green spot denote a 'd'. Once grown, the pattern of colonies is imprinted onto a nitrocellulose sheet, which is posted in an envelope. The recipient can use the sheet to regrow the bacteria in the same pattern and decipher the message.
By choosing the right E. coli strains, people could send messages that appear after specific periods of time, or slowly degenerate like the self-destructing memos from the television programme and film series Mission: Impossible.
Palacios has also developed ways to turn antibiotics into keys that unlock the hidden messages, by linking the genes for the fluorescent proteins to the ability to resist specific antibiotics.
In his recently published 2011 novel Spiral, Paul McEuen uses a similar idea to present a message using genetically modified fungi.
The three [fungi] symbols glowed, pulsing. She studied them closely. [Liam] must have worked very hard to get them to turn on and off like that. It was a biological feedback loop, she knew. Express the green fluorescent protein pathway from the Aequorea victoria jellyfish, then have that expression induce the creation of a suppressor that would turn it off...
The red. A long pulse, then two shorter.
The green one. A long pulse, then short.
The yellow. A short pulse, followed by a longer one.
From Nature.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 10/15/2011)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.
| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 1 )
Related News Stories -
("
Biology
")
Tsunami Forecasts Improved By Ionosphere Signals
'Swifter than any tide could ebb, the water was receding from the shore.'
EctoLife Concept Video Artificial Womb For Baby Mass Production
'A great many of these synthetic babies were made
and allowed to grow up under ideal conditions...' - Dr. David H. Keller, 1928.
T. Gondii And The Leaders Of The Pack
'... infected males were more than 46 times more likely to become pack leaders than uninfected males.'
Alien Eyes - Here On Earth!
'...a picture of a cyclopean beast living among the asteroidal rubble of some distant sun.' - Arthur C. Clarke
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!)
is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for
the Invention Category that interests
you, the Glossary, the Invention
Timeline, or see what's New.
|
 |
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Win $250K By Reading Ancient Scrolls Carbonized By Vesuvius
'... it was as if the upper part had been removed, like a cut deck of cards.'
Toy-Like Robot Well-Being Coaches Are The Best
Sumomo will get those office workers into good shape!
AI-Trained Snack App Avatar Goes On Dates For You
'... who let their handbag computers carry all the conversation.'
M-Dwarf Stars May Not Have Habitable Planets
'Thus it came about that the search for a planetiferous sun near a white dwarf star was not unduly prolonged...'
Too Soon To Doom Lunar Farside Observatories
'Earth never shone there, but life was good.'
Amitabh Bachchan Wins Personality Protection
'He led me down the Hall of Portraits to the ego-likeness of the Duke Leto Atreides.'
LIAM F1 UWT Clever Rooftop Windmill
'...a windmill on his roof...'
Scent-Identifying Robot Uses Machine Learning
'It's picking up diphenyl compounds and tetrahydrocarbons...'
Volvo's Autonomous Truck
'They were automatic trucks such as are used for making deliveries...'
Skiing On The Moon - Skiing on Asteroids?
'MacIntyre bent down without a word and picked up the wide skis necessary to negotiate the powdery ash.'
Liberty Lifter X-Plane From DARPA
'...the tremendous speed that the Jupiter was turning up under the thrust of her twenty-four screws whirling on the shafts of twelve powerful motors.'
Robot Performs 3D Bioprinting Inside The Body
'Probably Runciter's body contained a dozen artiforgs...'
Bubloons May Be The Start Of Something Much Bigger
'Spurgle kicked at the letter G... It was a monstrous white thing, ten feet thick, half a city block long...'
Sleeping Pods In Tokyo Railway Stations
'... she was asleep before the lid sealed fully back in place.'
Wist Labs Makes Minority Report Family Videos Come True
Step inside your memory - it's immersive.
Robot Imagines Itself (Not The First Time This Has Happened)
'[Robots] have to discover their hands, feet, and other parts of their bodies'
More SF in the News Stories
More Beyond Technovelgy science news stories
|
 |