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80 Billion Songs Fit on This “DNA Cassette Tape”
Published 3 months ago • 7 min read
Ines Lee Lead Writer at VeMail
Hi Reader, this month offers the best chance in years to see Saturn. The ringed planet reaches opposition on September 21, meaning it sits directly opposite the Sun from Earth's perspective, the closest and brightest it gets all year. What makes this month special is that Saturn’s rings are tilted nearly edge-on to our view. To the naked eye, Saturn will still shine like a bright star, but through telescopes the rings take on a dramatic, knife-thin appearance.
Before we dive in, we'd love your thoughts on a tabletop learning project we've been building over the past year. It will include a set of question cards designed to help you test and grow your knowledge. We're exploring special editions on different subjects and we'd love to know which topics you'd be most excited about. Click here to let us know your favorites. Coming up this week 📼 This Cassette Tape Holds 362 Petabytes of Data 🔭 Black Hole Collision Confirms Hawking's 50-Year Area Theorem 🐭 Mini Microscope Enables Real-Time 3D Brain Imaging in Mice +more
TECHNOLOGY
DNA Cassette Tapes Could Transform the Future of Digital Storage
The world is drowning in data: AI models, video archives, scientific records, and decades of digital logs. Today’s storage - solid-state drives, magnetic tapes, and vast server farms - is running up against physical and energy limits. These systems consume enormous amounts of space, cooling, and power just to keep information alive. Researchers from China believe nature might hold part of the solution: DNA. Published in Science Advances, scientists developed a functional DNA cassette tape - a physical ribbon that encodes digital information into synthetic genetic sequences, borrowing the familiar form factor of 1980s audio tapes. The system works by converting digital files into DNA's four-letter code (A, C, G, T), then depositing these sequences into thousands of microscopic wells along a 3.5-mm polyester-nylon strip. Each genetic barcode occupies its own addressable partition, sealed under a protective coating that guards against environmental damage. The team successfully demonstrated the full cycle: storing a 156.6 KB image, reading it back, erasing the data, and rewriting new information using a compact, lunchbox-sized drive. While the process took nearly an hour (too slow for actual use), the implications for long-term "cold" storage are remarkable. The numbers reveal why this matters. The DNA cassette can store 362 petabytes (PB) per kilometer of tape - equivalent to tens of millions of HD movies. Unlike conventional media, these genetic archives could remain stable for centuries without power or cooling. Significant challenges remain: DNA synthesis remains expensive, read/write speeds need improvement, and manufacturing must scale. But as a proof of concept, the DNA cassette tape suggests a future where our vast digital archives could shrink from warehouse-sized data centers to library shelves. TL;DR: Chinese researchers built a DNA “cassette tape” that converts files into synthetic DNA strands on a polymer strip, with addressable read/write/erase cycles. At ~362 PB per kilometer and centuries of stability, it offers a glimpse of how this DNA approach could solve the global data storage crunch.
NEUROSCIENCE
This Device Enables Real-Time 3D Brain Imaging in Mice
Neuroscience has a frustrating blind spot: the best brain-imaging tools often require animals to sit perfectly still, making it hard to study how brain activity maps to real behavior. Researchers at UC Davis may have solved that problem with DeepInMiniscope, a tiny microscope about the size of a grape and weighing just ten grams. It lets mice move freely while their brain activity is captured in real-time 3D. The device uses a clever hybrid of optics and AI. A mask containing more than 100 miniature lenslets collects overlapping views of the brain. A custom “unrolled” neural network then fuses those images into a high-resolution 3D reconstruction, fast enough to capture dynamic patterns of neural activity as a mouse scurries about. The team of researchers published their results on September 12. This marks a major leap from earlier “miniscopes,” which offered only flat 2D views and less detail. Now, neuroscientists can begin probing how dynamic brain activity drives natural behaviors, from navigation to decision-making, with unprecedented precision. In the long term, such tools could deepen our understanding of neurological disorders and help design smarter treatments. TL;DR: Scientists built a grape-sized microscope that non-invasively records real-time 3D brain activity in freely moving mice. This breakthrough could link neural dynamics to behavior and accelerate research on brain disorders.
When two black holes spiral into each other and merge, something profound must happen to the fabric of spacetime itself. In the 1970s, Stephen Hawking predicted that the surface area of the final black hole's event horizon (the point of no return) must be at least as large as the sum of the two original horizons combined. This 'area theorem' links black hole physics to the fundamental laws of thermodynamics. But proving it required catching gravitational waves with unprecedented clarity. Previous detections from observatories like LIGO hinted at the theorem's validity, yet the signals were too noisy to provide definitive confirmation. That changed on January 14, 2025. LIGO detected GW250114, a gravitational wave signal from two colliding black holes with exceptional precision. The signal-to-noise ratio hit 80, three times clearer than the historic first detection in 2015. This clarity allowed researchers to infer the masses and spins of the black holes more precisely, and from these calculate the event horizons before and after collision with remarkable accuracy. The results, published last week, confirm Hawking's prediction. The merged black hole's event horizon area exceeds the sum of its progenitors, providing the strongest observational evidence yet for the area theorem. The implications extend beyond confirming what we suspected. Now, with such clean data, physicists can test these ideas under extreme gravity, improve our models of black holes, and perhaps inch closer to reconciling gravity with quantum mechanics. TL;DR: LIGO's exceptionally clean detection of merging black holes confirms Hawking’s area theorem: calculations show the final black hole’s horizon is larger than the sum of its parts, validating decades-old theoretical predictions about spacetime's behavior under extreme gravity.
In other news...
3D Lasers Could Reconstruct the Kirk Shooting. Forensic experts are using 3D laser scanners to preserve and reconstruct the Charlie Kirk shooting scene, creating precise digital models that investigators can revisit to test trajectories and vantage points long after the crime. Storing DNA Without Ice or Freezers. MIT spinout Cache DNA has created amber-like polymers that store DNA at room temperature and release it intact on demand. This discovery could replace costly freezers with a stable, shelf-ready system that would transform medicine, research, and pandemic preparedness. Measles Virus Can Kill Years After Infection. A child in Los Angeles died of SSPE, a fatal brain disorder years after measles infection, leading experts to warn that measles is far more than a rash. It can cause encephalitis and “immune amnesia,” erasing past immunity. The Tiny 6G Chip That’s 10,000× Faster Than 5G. Scientists created a fingernail-sized 6G chip that spans nine frequency bands and transmits at 100 Gbps. It could enable cheap, global 6G rollout. How Did Earth Miss This Asteroid for 70 Years? Astronomers discovered asteroid 2025 PN7, a 19-meter “quasi-moon” that models suggest has accompanied Earth’s orbit for decades. Strongest Hint Yet of Ancient Life on Mars. NASA’s Perseverance rover found nodules and carbon-based compounds in Jezero Crater’s Bright Angel rocks. Scientists call them “potential biosignatures,” making this the strongest hint yet of ancient microbial life on Mars. Rats Speak a Secret Language. A Manhattan field study reveals NYC rats communicate in ultrasonic squeaks inaudible to humans. Scientists say decoding these social vocalizations and tracking movements could reshape pest control and city planning.
This week is notable for the anniversaries of the passing of several pioneering scientists and mathematicians:
September 14, 1712. Giovanni Domenico Cassini died at 87 after decades mapping the solar system from his observatory in Paris. The Italian-French astronomer discovered the gap in Saturn's rings now called Cassini's Division and found four of Saturn's moons, a legacy honored when NASA's Cassini spacecraft orbited Saturn for 13 years until 2017.
September 16, 1736. Gabriel Fahrenheit died at 50, leaving behind the temperature scale that still bears his name across the US. His mercury thermometers and careful work measuring how boiling points vary laid the groundwork for modern thermodynamics.
September 18, 1783. Leonhard Euler, perhaps the most prolific mathematician who ever lived, died at age 76 after spending his final day calculating lunar orbits. His mathematical output was so vast that the St. Petersburg Academy continued publishing his work for decades after his death.
September 16, 1925. Alexander Friedmann died of typhus at just 37, three years after proposing that Einstein's equations allowed for an expanding universe. The Russian mathematician had essentially predicted the Big Bang model years before Hubble's telescope would confirm cosmic expansion.
This Week’s Puzzle
🧩
Three Married Couples
Three married couples must cross a river in a boat that holds two people max.
Constraint: No wife may be with another man unless her own husband is present (on either bank or in the boat). The boat can’t move empty; anyone can row. C
an all six cross safely and how?
Until next time,
The Ve Team 👋
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