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Want to store your photos in digital DNA? Here's how

NHGRI researcher uses a pipette to remove DNA from a micro test tube. PHOTO: Maggie Bartlett, National Institutes of Health.

SEATTLE — Scientists at University of Washington and Microsoft are storing digital data -- like music videos and digital photos -- into strands of synthetic DNA, and now you can participate.

Through the project created by UW’s Molecular Information Systems Laboratory, scientists are trying to understand what kinds of images people would like to preserve for posterity as they build a library of quickly searchable images stored in synthetic DNA.

According to GeekWire, the researchers' database already contains over 400 megabytes worth of DNA-encoded data.

Scientists are asking for people to upload their own personal pictures of something that they want to remember forever to be stored in DNA.  It could be a person, a place or occasion, for example, but must be original.

Researchers will take a selection of images received and encode them in DNA.

You can participate in the #MemoriesInDNA program by visiting their site here:  http://memoriesindna.com/