Living Memory

I doubt that when man gained control of fire for the first time, he stopped to consider that he was putting human history on a new course. Only from the perspective of history, can we look back at certain events and think, "of course! That changed everything!"

Similarly, I wonder how long it will take to look back at this moment and think, "well, of course!"

Scientists in Japan have developed a way to store data in the DNA of a common bacterium.

According to researchers, up to 100 bits of data can be attached to each organism. Scientists successfully encoded and attached the phrase "e=mc2 1905" to the DNA of bacillus subtilis, a common soil bacteria.

One early use for the technique would be to create special markers to identify legitimate versions of pharmaceuticals. However, the bacillus itself creates new copies of the data every time it reproduces itself, thus making it an ideal archival storage system.

Bacillus subtilis also creates extra copies of the data, inserting it in different places in its genome, further safeguarding the data. That's "multiple backup copies" for those of you who have lost data in the past.

The question is, will we look back at this development and think, "well of course! It was the beginning of the Golden Age of humanity!"

Or, will we look back and think "of course! What in God's name were we thinking?" as we fight for survivial against the self-aware computer network that is trying to exterminate the human race?

We shall see.