Arpith Siromoney 💬

They’ll Never Forget Us

D. radiodurans is capable of withstanding an acute dose of 5,000 Gy of ionizing radiation with almost no loss of viability, and an acute dose of 15,000 Gy with 37% viability.

Much better than we can.

In 2003, U.S. scientists demonstrated that D. radiodurans could be used as a means of information storage that might survive a nuclear catastrophe. They translated the song It’s a Small World into a series of DNA segments 150 base pairs long, inserted these into the bacteria, and were able to retrieve them without errors 100 bacterial generations later.

But 300 years? On a lighter note, Asimov’s Silly Asses reminded me of this Fly, You Fools! comic.