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back to article Glasgow boffins: We can now do it, Captain. We DO have the molecular storage power

If the number of electrons on flash storage is getting too few for reliability then use molecules for bit storage instead, and that's exactly what Glasgow uni boffins have gone and done it. Smarty-pants at the university Schools of Chemistry and Engineering, working with Rovira i Virgili University, Spain, have created …

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  1. Swarthy
    Joke

    Wow

    I never would have thought that a Glasgow institute of learning would have ever let a POM in the door. Well, except I can see Glasgowins strapping a pom to a device and running current through 'em to see what happens.

    2 0 Reply
    1. Ragarath
      Reply Icon

      Re: Wow

      POME (Prisoner Of Mother England) but close and it still works ;)

      Prisoner of Mother, just does not sound right.

      0 0 Reply
      1. Dr. Mouse
        Reply Icon

        Re: Wow

        Prisoner of Mother

        Would that not be a foetus?

        2 0 Reply
        1. fearnothing
          Reply Icon

          Re: Wow

          Only if you're Republican/Tea Party.

          0 0 Reply
      2. Robert Helpmann??
        Reply Icon
        Childcatcher

        Re: Wow

        ...to create a new type of memory we call ‘write-once-erase’.

        New memory to be called WOE? Does not sound like the beginning of a great marketing campaign to me!

        4 0 Reply
    2. Graham Cunningham
      Reply Icon

      Re: Wow

      "Glasgowins" -> "Weegies"

      0 0 Reply
  2. Irongut
    Boffin

    So they finally did it?

    Glasgow Uni have been working on molecular memory since I did my electronics degree there in the early 90s. Twenty years later they finally managed to make it work? I doubt many of the professors I knew are still there. Why did it take so long?

    0 2 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: So they finally did it?

      Because science is hard bitch!

      5 0 Reply
  3. John Savard

    Potential for Confusion

    Not to be confused with polyoxymethylene, used for making guitar picks, and also known by the acronym POM.

    1 0 Reply
    1. The_Idiot
      Reply Icon

      Re: Potential for Confusion

      Or, indeed, molecules of this:

      .

      http://www.pomwonderful.com/

      .

      I can see it now. 'No, that wasn't your breakfast dear. You just drank our disk drive. So if you want your cat pictures back, the data recovery is going to be, um, messy...'

      1 0 Reply
  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm not sure if...

    ... someone at the Reg has shares in flash storage, or they get a very nice packet from sponsors for the site.

    Nothing wrong with the article, it's just the wording of every post seems to have "FLASH" in the title.

    0 0 Reply
  5. JeffyPoooh
    Pint

    DNA/RNA

    DNA or RNA. Pretty dense storage. Inherently MLA with the quad-state digits.

    If they could just nano-miniaturize the readers and printers, then we'd have this option.

    0 0 Reply
  6. Conundrum1885

    Re. DNA/RNA

    In this case, its turtles all the way down.

    Nano sized turtles armed with itty bitty molecule sized toothpicks, pushing the atoms around like an army of little elves at Gringotts.

    I can't wait for my terabyte Ipod Shuffle, come on Apple and get this on the shelves already.

    RRP $299.99 sounds about right.

    0 0 Reply
  7. Candy

    Oh, WOE is, er, them.

    So they've invented a new kind of memory but what exactly defines 'write-once-erase'?

    2 0 Reply
    1. DropBear
      Reply Icon
      Trollface

      Re: Oh, WOE is, er, them.

      ...You can write it once you erased it, maybe...?

      0 0 Reply
    2. Martin Budden Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Coat

      Re: Oh, WOE is, er, them.

      'write-once-erase' is only the first part of the new memory's description. They wrote the rest of it once, but then...

      1 0 Reply

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