4 ms·

It's napkin math so take it with a pinch of salt, but I am calculating the information stored in genome, assuming 2 bits per base pair, reducing to estimated 88

It's napkin math so take it with a pinch of salt, but I am calculating the information stored in genome, assuming 2 bits per base pair, reducing to estimated 88% coding fraction to get the functional bits, and then dividing by cell volume. Did this for a few different types of cells and then averaged the result to around 1–10 Mbit/μm³ # If there are any bioinformaticians around please come eviscerate or confirm this calc # Then compared it to TSMC 2nm research macro of (38.1 Mbit/mm^2) normalized to cell scale: 0.00019 Mbit/μm³ Living Cells: 1–10 Mbit/μm³ Current best chips: 0.00019 Mbit/μm³ https://research.tsmc.com/page/memory/4.html https://research.tsmc.com/page/memory/4.html

imtringued 1y ago
You are comparing the fastest writable memory available (SRAM) vs biological non-volatile memory that is essentially read only. Samsung's 280 layer NAND reaches 28,5 Gbit per mm^2. I don't know how you would convert that to a volume, but if we simply multiply by 1000x for simplicity, it would be much closer to 0.19 Mbit/μm³, but even then you have to remember that NAND flash is still writable at pretty high speeds.
- FloorEgg 1y ago
  This is true, I was only comparing functional information density (unique functional genome bps), not read/write speeds. I was also taking the information from a genome and then dividing it by the volume of a cell, but there are many instances of the genome in a cell. I didn't count all instances because they aren't unique. There's a lot to unpack with this comparison and my approximation was crude, but the more I've dug into this comparison the more apparent how incredibly efficient life is at managing and processing and storing information. Especially if you also consider the amino acids, proteins, etc as information. No matter how you slice it, life seems orders of magnitude more efficient by every metric. I'd like to think there's a paper somewhere where someone has carefully unpacked this and formally quantified it all.
  - airstrike 1y ago
    If you find that illusive paper, please post it here!

imtringued 1y ago

You are comparing the fastest writable memory available (SRAM) vs biological non-volatile memory that is essentially read only. Samsung's 280 layer NAND reaches 28,5 Gbit per mm^2. I don't know how you would convert that to a volume, but if we simply multiply by 1000x for simplicity, it would be much closer to 0.19 Mbit/μm³, but even then you have to remember that NAND flash is still writable at pretty high speeds.

FloorEgg 1y ago
This is true, I was only comparing functional information density (unique functional genome bps), not read/write speeds. I was also taking the information from a genome and then dividing it by the volume of a cell, but there are many instances of the genome in a cell. I didn't count all instances because they aren't unique. There's a lot to unpack with this comparison and my approximation was crude, but the more I've dug into this comparison the more apparent how incredibly efficient life is at managing and processing and storing information. Especially if you also consider the amino acids, proteins, etc as information. No matter how you slice it, life seems orders of magnitude more efficient by every metric. I'd like to think there's a paper somewhere where someone has carefully unpacked this and formally quantified it all.
- airstrike 1y ago
  If you find that illusive paper, please post it here!