Shakespeare's Sonnets, Encoded In DNA

NPR | Jan. 25, 2013 10 a.m. | Updated: Jan. 25, 2013 1:54 p.m.

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Reporting in Nature, researchers write of encoding a variety of files--jpg, mp3, txt and pdf--in strands of DNA. Lead author Nick Goldman says DNA is extraordinarily long-lasting, compared to today's hard drives and magnetic tapes. And if all the world's information were written in DNA, he says, it would fit in the back of a station wagon.