Brainstorming Mundane SF Story Idea….
I read this article on storing data in bacteria DNA a few minutes ago and realized there’s a germ, no pun intended, of a story idea there for this anthology on mundane SF.
If scientists began to aggressively research the storage of data in bacteria, animal, and human, DNA, and replicated across generations, in what ways would the world be different, say, 40 years down the road?
1. What would it mean to be able to get rid of data storage tapes, disks, chips, etc.? Could you wave to your garden, or even just your packet of seeds, and say, “our university archives are stored there?”
2. How common is DNA mutation? The scientists in the article encoded the data in four places in the bacteria to try to avoid mutation. Obviously the key to the story would be DNA mutation, suspected or actual, induced or accidental….
3. Could we eventually read/write data to DNA easily, or would it always be a time-consuming process (mundane SF extrapolates on what’s feasible and likely today, rather than suggest we’ll have incredible scientific breakthroughs in the future). As I understand it, “reading” DNA is still a somewhat time-consuming lab process in forensics labs, but 40 years from now, could retrieving DNA-encoded data be as easy as pricking a finger, getting some blood, and having the data translated by a computer?
4. How might this change the world of corporate espionage or political terrorism, which seem to me to be two places where the safe and inconspicuous storage & movement of data is very important. Or maybe the story would be more interesting if it were advertising data that was mutated or stolen, playing off recent questions about how long Google is keeping user search data….
I’m not an SF writer, and the idea of mundane SF seems conceptually flawed to me. My feeling is that we’re more likely to end up with a bunch of stories akin to those ’50s sci-fi tales where scientists are calculating spaceflight trajectories on their slide rulers than anything realistic, but hey…. the article’s enough to get me thinking. If you have any ideas, feel free to throw them into the comments. Don’t know if I’ll be able to write this story (if one of you wants to co-write with me, email), but it’s worth speculating about.
drupagliassotti @ May 29, 2007