Technologies

DNA Gets Artificial Upgrade to Store Humanity’s Boundless Digital Data

Scientists added seven new letters to the existing nucleotide alphabet, opening the door for extreme levels of data storage capacity.

In the last few years, humanity has created more data than in all of history combined — a remarkable level of output with no signs of slowing down. But where are we going to put all of it?

Though scientists are constantly increasing hard drive sizes to hold humanity’s information, and many of them believe this could be done indefinitely, some suggest these efforts will eventually be outrun by the exponential rate at which we generate data. In response to such worries, scientists have been looking into a rather unique solution — storing files, photos and documents on nature’s very own information database: DNA.

DNA is both vast and condensed enough to contain an unfathomable amount of data in hyper small spaces. After all, the double helix strands protect our bodies’ entire blueprints while tucked inside cell nuclei merely 10 micrometers wide. Plus, DNA is naturally abundant and can withstand super harsh conditions on Earth. Scientists can even retrieve genetic information from DNA that’s several centuries old.

«Every day, several petabytes of data are generated on the internet. Only one gram of DNA would be sufficient to store that data. That’s how dense DNA is as a storage medium,» Kasra Tabatabaei, a researcher at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, said in a statement.

Tabatabaei is the co-author of a new study, published in last month’s edition of the journal Nano Letters, that may well take the DNA data storage concept to great heights. Essentially, the study team is the first to artificially extend the DNA alphabet, which could allow for massive storage capacities and accommodate a pretty extreme level of digital data.

Before we dive into the details, here’s a quick biology recap.

DNA encodes genetic information with four molecules called nucleotides. There’s adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine, or A, G, C and T. In a sense, DNA has a four-letter alphabet, and different letter combinations represent different bits of data. With just these four letters, nature can encode the genetic information of every single living organism. So, theoretically, we should be able to store a ton of digital data with this crew of letters, too. But what if we had a longer alphabet? Presumably, that’d give us a much deeper capacity.

Following this line of thought, the team behind the new study artificially added seven new letters to the DNA repertoire. «Imagine the English alphabet,» Tabatabei said. «If you only had four letters to use, you could only create so many words. If you had the full alphabet, you could produce limitless word combinations. That’s the same with DNA. Instead of converting zeroes and ones to A, G, C and T, we can convert zeroes and ones to A, G, C, T and the seven new letters in the storage alphabet.»

Further, ensuring information encoded in these 11 letters can be regurgitated on demand, the researchers also coined a novel mechanism that precisely reads back the synthetic DNA’s data. The system uses deep-learning algorithms and artificial intelligence to discern between the human-made DNA letters and natural ones, as well as differentiate everything from one another.

All in all, it provides an extremely clear readout of the DNA’s letter combinations, thereby unveiling any and all information hiding inside.

«We tried 77 different combinations of the 11 nucleotides, and our method was able to differentiate each of them perfectly,» Chao Pan, a graduate student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a co-author on this study, said in a statement, and «the deep learning framework as part of our method to identify different nucleotides is universal, which enables the generalizability of our approach to many other applications.»

DNA isn’t the only up and coming, innovative way of holding our compounding data. A Harvard University research team, for instance, is working on using neon dyes to encode invaluable information. Still, Tabatabaei remarked, «DNA is nature’s original data storage system. We can use it to store any kind of data: images, video, music — anything.»

Technologies

Google’s New AI Features Are Trying to Make Data Entry a Thing of the Past

More Gemini AI features will come to Google Docs, Sheets and Slides.

The latest batch of Google updates to its workspace tools highlights AI’s promise to automate mundanity in the workplace. Google Docs, Slides, Sheets and Drive all have new AI-powered features, the company announced Tuesday. The one thing all these updates have in common? Gemini is using your files, emails and chats to give you relevant information, not random answers gleaned from the web.

These updates come as AI is playing a bigger role in our work lives, for better or worse. Agentic tools like Claude Cowork and coding assistants like Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex are more capable than chatbots and able to handle tasks announced independently. AI tools are also becoming more customized, with Google’s personalized intelligence rolling out across its platforms to help refine AI outputs to things that are relevant and useful for you. Google continues that trend with this new batch of Workspace updates.

New Gemini AI features in Google Workspace apps will cite their sources after each query. For example, if you ask Gemini in Google Docs to fill out an itinerary template, it will pull the information from your email, chats and files. The «sources» tab in the Gemini side panel will show you where it found the information it used, like your flight confirmation email and chats discussing dinner plans. Seeing where Gemini pulled its answers from is also how you’ll double-check Gemini’s work.

The most impressive new features are in Sheets, where AI can fill in the holes in your spreadsheets. You can describe what you want the AI to do with a simple prompt and avoid writing an exact formula. You can click on an empty cell, select the pop-up that says «Drag to fill with Gemini,» then highlight the cells you want Gemini to fill in. That deploys an AI agent to search the web to fill each cell with the necessary information.

For example, if you have a spreadsheet of the contact info for local companies, you can have Gemini search the web to fill in a the location, CEO and other publicly available information of each company. The tool aims to dramatically reduce the time needed for manual data entry. Gemini can also summarize, categorize and create charts with prompts alone.

You can also chat with Gemini in Sheets and have it scour your raw data to make custom reports and charts. No need for pivot tables if they confound you as much as they baffle me. One of the biggest uses of AI at work is helping create presentations.

In Google Slides, you can now tell Gemini in natural language what you want to appear on a slide, and it will create it, matching the style of your existing slides. You can also ask Gemini to edit your slides if you don’t want to waste time painstakingly moving design elements around the slide. The AI should fill the slides with relevant information based on your instructions and the work files it has access to, so you shouldn’t need to replace a bunch of filler text.

If you use Docs, Sheets and Slides through the Workspace account of your company, then you won’t be able to turn off AI features individually. The managing company is in control of AI access for users. Personal users can tweak their settings to limit Gemini. The new features are rolling out in beta now, in English only, to Google AI Ultra and Pro subscribers in the US, as well as some Google Workspace customers who are part of the Gemini Alpha testing program.

For more, check out the new cowork feature in Copilot and how to use Perplexity AI for deep research.

Technologies

Nintendo Switches Lanes, Sues US Over Tariffs

Mario wants his money back.

Tariffs implemented by President Donald Trump were struck down by the Supreme Court last month. Companies that were subjected to those fees, such as FedEx and Dollar General, have since sued the federal government, and Nintendo wants a piece of the action.

Nintendo filed a lawsuit against the federal government in the US Court of International Trade on Friday, as first spotted by Aftermath. The complaint seeks refunds of tariffs Nintendo paid, plus interest, and asks the court to declare the tariffs unlawful and stop the government from collecting them going forward.

«Since February 1, 2025, President Trump has executed the unlawful Executive Orders, imposing tariffs on imports from a vast swath of countries,» Nintendo said in the complaint.

When reached for comment, Nintendo of America confirmed the lawsuit.

«We can confirm that we filed a request. We have nothing else to share on this topic,» Nintendo of America said in an emailed statement on Friday, March 6.

It’s unclear how much Nintendo paid in tariffs, and it did not state an amount in the lawsuit. While the Switch 2 was priced at $450 when it launched last year, and has stayed at that amount, Nintendo did increase the price of the original Switch and accessories for both consoles. Microsoft and Sony also increased the prices of their hardware and accessories last year due to tariffs.

The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

On Feb. 20, the Supreme Court ruled by a vote of 6 to 3 that the sweeping tariffs Trump instituted last year exceeded his executive powers. Following the ruling, on the same day, Trump announced a new set of tariffs of 10% on imported goods that would last for 150 days, starting Feb. 24.

The decision on what to do with the collected tariffs — a reported $166 billion — has been left to the US Court of International Trade. Judge Richard Eaton told the US Customs and Border Protection on Wednesday, March 4, to refund the importers that were forced to pay tariffs, which is more than 330,000. On Friday, the CBP said it couldn’t easily issue tariff refunds because its system requires duties to be recalculated and refunds processed entry by entry. This process would involve tens of millions of transactions. The agency said it’s updating its systems and could start providing refunds by late April.