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DNA Synthesis in kbps

Posted by Tom on the 9th of August, 2010, at 4:18 pm.

• The human genome is 3.2 billion base pairs in length.
• This is in a base-four encoding system. To encode the same amount of information in a base-two system, it takes two bits (since there are four possible two-digit binary numbers, 00, 01, 10, and 11). So, reencoded in binary, this would take 6.4 x 10⁹ bits.
• 6.4 x 10⁹ X 1 byte / 8 bits X 1 kilobyte / 1024 bytes = 781,250 kilobytes of binary information in 8-bit bytes in the human genome.
• The S-phase of human mitosis, in which DNA replication occurs, takes between 5 and 8 hours.
• 781,250 kilobytes / 5 hours X 1 hour / 3600 seconds = 217 kilobytes/second maximum rate of DNA replication

Actually, it's a little disappointing. I was hoping for something much higher and more impressive. Hell, my dorm's internet is faster than that.