Genetics Solves Fiber Optic Problem

Its really weird how it happens – you’re looking for one thing and something else just pops out and catches your eye! I write on Forensic Science for a Canadian Website, so I’m always on the lookout for anything linked to DNA. I stumbled onto this Australian Scientific website and this really interesting article caught my eye – Genetics cracks fire-optic problem.

I know nothing at all about fiber optics, except for what I’ve read in the SmartCity documentation – oh and one disgruntled person mentioned on a bulletin board that the rats were eating up our cables underground. (I put it down to the general negative mindset that “if they don’t steal the telephone wires, the rats rats will eat the cables – we’re doomed anyway!”)

But this article from Sciencealert explains that Australian scientists have used genome analysis tools to create a patented technology to investigate the fate of the laser beams zapping through the optical fibres that connect our cities.

“Their ideas have broken the back of a communications industry problem – how to identify the causes of noise in these optical cables that form a key part of the backbone of the Internet.

The device that they and their fellow engineers at NICTA, Australia’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Research Centre of Excellence, have invented, will, for a few thousand dollars, do a job that today would cost $100,000 plus and would require multiple types of test equipment.”

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