I was reading an article this morning about storage/encoding of data in DNA as well reading the data back (supplemental readings here). I am quite amazed at how early this research started, but at the same time I am afraid of the idea that we could be using our own bodies for storage of data.

Ironically I have been watching a series on YouTube called H+ The Digital Series, it’s a great show so far and it is great to see a new way that YouTube is being leveraged for delivering video; it is the first video I’ve seen where the playlist will skip the introduction and the credits on each video as it continues from one to the next.

Overall in H+ people are implanted with microcomputers that are embedded into their brain from a simple injection, which allows them to interface with a GUI that is inside of their head, as well as be connected to the network, you’ll have to watch the series yourself to see what all happens.

Personally I think that we are in the day and age for something like this to happen, especially after reading about this article on DNA encoding and decoding of data, where they wrote in “An html coded draft of a book that included 53,426 words, 11 JPG images, and one JavaScript into a 5.27 megabit bitstream.”

If such technology is inevitable in our life time, you have to ask yourself, “Will I join into the main stream and be implanted with such technology, or will I deny it and become the next generation of Amish?”

If I was ever faced with such a decision, it would be a really hard choice, because I love technology, it is who I am, it is what I am basing my future career in, but I would be afraid of that much control being within me, as well as the whole social networking experience that would of course be a large part of it, just like Facebook I ultimately deny to use it for my daily social purposes, I see Facebook best used as a tool for your business to reach out to people.

I also recognize that companies would want to make such technology affordable so that everyone could obtain it, which they would then force marketing, advertising, and the big kahuna of greed upon us.  I would love to deny such technology, but as you could see it’s quite comparable of today’s current society and technology to the Amish.

One thing I do wonder about though, is whether or not storing data in DNA is something to afraid of, if they are actually storing the data within a human or not, if it could lead to the destruction of data in a human because of our natural repair process or if it could mess up our current DNA?  The other thing to realize is that this is nothing new, they first wrote to DNA in 1988.