My biological black technology

Cheng Xiang stared at the screen carefully. The base pairs on the screen were marked with a replacement symbol with a question mark from time to time. From time to time, there was a red missing replacement symbol, either sparse or dense. The substitution symbol with the question mark was already there when Mars was scanning. The base pairs that cannot be determined, and the red missing substitution symbols, are due to the loss of data transmitted from Mars to the earth. It is a long distance, and it takes several minutes for the signal to arrive. It is too expensive to transmit without losing data. big.

With current technical capabilities, there is no way to implement an efficient confirmation resend mechanism. It's pretty good to have this timestamp in front of you indicating that the signal has not been received.

"There are a lot of mistakes and omissions." Cheng Xiang lamented, but there was nothing he could do about it. Research is just like this. There are not so many ideal conditions. "However, there is still so much information, which is already quite good."

"Be content."

After all, the most important task in the early stage is to initially determine the value of this box. To be precise, the value of the genes in this box.

In the current project file, the active panel on the left is a tree structure with ten sub-nodes, representing the gene sequencing vector files from boxes 1 to 10. Double-click to open the corresponding data view. This engineering software was developed by Galaxy Research Institute.

With Cheng Xiang's supervision and a group of biology experts and professors constantly giving their opinions, this software is naturally very smooth and reliable to use.

The most important task now is to determine the research value of this gene, and this kind of puzzle-like task has always been the most difficult. It feels like just telling you that there is a treasure in the mountain in front of you, but you don’t know where it is buried. Where, you have to find one yourself.

There is nothing better than finding a needle in a haystack.

Cheng Xiang did not check the details of the gene immediately, but thought for a moment, "The box that was discovered has a total of 49 small boxes with the same shape inside."

"This can be considered a clue, that's it."

Cheng Xiang remembered a very convenient function of this software, which is gene sequencing comparison.

Like commonly used document string comparison, gene comparison compares different DNA sequencing documents, and what is compared is whether the arrangement and combination of base pairs are consistent. If there are any inconsistencies, they will be marked one by one. After the comparison is completed, press the shortcut key F3 to quickly view each difference in sequence.

"Let's compare them first."

"Maybe we'll find something."

The most common exploration process is trial and error. Naturally, we start with the lowest cost. Nothing is simpler than this. Thinking of this, Chen Xiang will immediately use the mouse to select all documents, right-click and select Compare All. The progress bar expands immediately, and the comparison results are displayed in real time.

A 200MB DNA map is enough to store 1.6 billion base pairs of information. Comparing ten DNA sequencing profiles at the same time, a computer with an average amount of computing power simply cannot support it. However, thanks to the fact that the software requirements were proposed by a group of professional biological researchers, the algorithm has already taken into account the particularities of biological sciences. The comparison is carried out in an incremental manner, starting immediately, issuing real-time results immediately, and can be terminated at any time.

Moreover, not to mention, a supercomputer has already been installed inside the laboratory building, and complex calculations can be entrusted to the supercomputer for processing. With a supercomputing speed of 10 to the 17th power per second, the comparison work of a mere 20 billion data volumes is not worth mentioning at all.

The progress bar went by almost in the blink of an eye, and the comparison results came out immediately.

Cheng Xiang stared closely at the screen. On the screen, a DNA base comparison view has been drawn. The overlapping parts of the ten views are printed in white. If there are differences, they will be marked in yellow. Click on them to see each numbered view. What the gene actually looks like at that position.

However, due to the relationship between display and memory, the display can only display the results of one interval at the same time.

There are hundreds of thousands of segments in this interval.

Cheng Xiang directly looked at the statistical results next to him.

Upon seeing this, Cheng Xiang immediately put down the wolfberry tea on his lips, and his expression became particularly solemn.

A rough inspection showed a coincidence rate of 45%.

Remove missing fragments, the coincidence rate is 60%,

After excluding the missing fragments, the coincidence rate is a full 99.999%!

"The coincidence rate is ninety-nine point ninety-nine percent!"

Cheng Xiang took a deep breath, picked up the intercom phone next to him, and dialed Hou Zhijie's office phone. The phone rang twice and was picked up.

"Director Hou, come here, I think I have made a discovery."

Hou Zhijie on the other end of the phone did not hesitate at all. She had just distributed the data she had just received to various groups. Before she could do anything else, Cheng Xiang had already made a breakthrough. She would be suspicious of others. The other party was professional, but when it came to Cheng Xiang, she had long been accustomed to Cheng Xiang's quickness, so she hung up the phone and rushed over without saying a word.

"Director Cheng." Hou Zhijie arrived.

"Director Hou, look at the statistical results!" Cheng Xiang stepped aside and let Hou Zhijie view the comparison results. Hou Zhijie immediately leaned over. The statistical results were very clear. The coincidence rate of those five nines is particularly eye-catching.

"Five nines? If we exclude the error of the signal being disrupted midway due to long-distance transmission." Hou Zhijie was surprised. He thought it would be a very arduous exploratory task, but who would have thought that there would be a substantial breakthrough so quickly.

"Yes, under the current conditions, we can make a preliminary assumption, that is, the DNA sequences in these forty-nine boxes are completely consistent." Cheng Xiang nodded and said.

"That means that the function of these forty-nine boxes is a backup and fault-tolerance measure?" Hou Zhijie immediately thought of a possibility.

"It should be right." Cheng Xiang confirmed Hou Zhijie's statement.

"But why do you do this?" Hou Zhijie asked. The conclusion drawn from one question always brings up more questions. This is the complexity of research and the fun of it.

"Ten kilograms of DNA, divided equally into forty-nine boxes. If estimated by fifty, the weight of DNA in each box is two hundred grams. What exactly will these two hundred grams of genes be?" Confirming the guess of the backup, The scope of research has been narrowed and the research process has been accelerated. However, the true assessment of value still requires determining what is preserved in the genes.

"The DNA of a single organism cannot be that big. The DNA of a single human cell weighs only 3 picograms. I now have a guess that the meaning of these genes may not be some biological genes, but use the characteristics of the DNA sequence as a A storage medium for data preservation.”

"Storing binary data as a base pair sequence has long been successful in the laboratory in the biological community. So, in theory, this is absolutely feasible."

"If I really have to make a guess, I am now more inclined to think that these genes are biological storage media."

"The forty-nine boxes are storage arrays." Cheng Xiang said slowly, "And the essence of this big box is a big hard drive!"

Thanks to Blue Whale and Goldfish, reader 1555418190247876, and user Lily of the Valley for their tips.

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