Researcher at MIT and Harvard Medical School, bio-art founder Joe Davis told Trends in an interview that the Internet can replace the future, why the world needs optimists, but a person should not live forever
About the expert: Joe Davis, American biologist, researcher in the Department of Biology at MIT and Harvard Medical School, founder of bio-art and author of many unusual projects. In the spring of 2020, he was a guest lecturer for the Moove student program from SKOLKOVO and MTS.
– What are the advantages of writing data in DNA from other possible technologies? For example, some say that low molecular weight metabolites (sugars, amino acids, etc.) or 3D optical memory may become promising storage in the future.
– Firstly, the information density of digital molecular archives – (for example, in DNA) has huge advantages over all competitors. Currently, data storage in DNA provides a density of up to 10¹⁸ bytes per cubic mm – at least six times greater than the capacity of any other medium available today.
Secondly, DNA data storage systems have already been tested by time and come complete with a set of reparative (restorative) enzymes, proteins and nucleic acids, as well as reliable room temperature “containers” (cells) that are accustomed to survive in almost any environment.
My colleagues and I recently demonstrated how information can be stored on a very inexpensive and extremely reliable storage medium, Halobacterium salinarum.
This is an archaea (a single-celled organism without a nucleus and any membrane organelles) that lives in conditions of high salinity. Studies have shown that nature has been storing data in this format for hundreds of millions of years. Impressive time frame, isn’t it?
I should note that the ability of DNA to assimilate data is rapidly developing along with the technologies for its sequencing (reading) and synthesis (writing). I am convinced that this technology will replace the Internet. The entire terrestrial biome can become our common forum, a “bulletin board”.
Proponents of the storage of digital information in metabolites claim that encoded arrays can be preserved unchanged for “months or years”, which cannot be compared with periods of “geological time” when information is stored in microorganisms.
Three-dimensional optical “memory discs” have demonstrated an information density comparable to Blu-ray. They can be created from fused silica, a material known for its high chemical stability and durability, which will allow materials to be kept intact during “geological time” under normal conditions. But this technology is likely to remain quite expensive, and so far no commercial product based on the principle of three-dimensional optical data storage has entered the mass market. The information density of Blu-Ray is impressive, but it is still an order of magnitude less than the information density carried by DNA.
— In one of your lectures, you said that the information recorded by the DNA method can be preserved for thousands and even millions of years. But at the same time, many futurologists say that humanity, at least in the form in which it exists now, does not have much time left on this planet. That is, the information will probably outlive us. For whom are we planning to keep all this data for so long?
– I would say that it is worth keeping information safe and sound as long as the human race is alive. Scientists discuss predictions of the survival of Homo sapiens taking into account many factors, but if we exclude the catastrophic possibility of self-destruction, the predictions of the last few decades say that we will live from another 5 thousand to 7-8 million years.
Humans are unique among the animal kingdom in that they understand their own mortality. This special knowledge makes us think about what exactly the human race can leave to its distant descendants.
My father once said that since photons leave their marks on absolutely everything, the shadow of a cloud will forever leave its mark on the stone. He predicted that sooner or later we would create tools with sufficient resolution to detect these traces, and also to understand that, like the shadow of a cloud, we also leave our imprint on everything that we meet – both living and non-living. He called it our “thermodynamic soul”.
We will always try to leave our mark – no matter if it is an attempt to communicate with the descendants of a reasonable person or with some other entity that is destined to become our neighbor in time and space.
Take the idea of Microvenus (a project by Joe Davis, carried out in the 1980s. Then the scientist placed an encoded image of an ancient Germanic rune in the genome of E. coli. – Trends). It was to explore the possibilities of biology in sending a huge number of messages over many thousands of light years and, accordingly, long periods of time. The methods that are now considered the most desirable for storing digital data are very similar, and sometimes identical, to the methods that are crucial for interstellar communications.
– Speaking of them. Some visionaries hope that soon we will be able to colonize the planets, and perhaps this is the only way in the matter of the survival of Homo sapiens. Do you think that in the future the technology of recording data in DNA will help the communication of people who will remain on Earth with those who will live, for example, on Mars? With “neighbors” on other planets?
“When (or rather, if) humanity goes so far in the process of colonizing planets that optical and radio frequency communication is unusable — say, when colonizing planetary systems in remote regions of the galaxy — then even communication at the speed of light will take time comparable to geological periods. The colonists will first of all need something like a “warp drive”, a fantastic space warp drive, to get there. This is so unlikely at present that I don’t think we will have a similar problem in the coming millennia. And whatever I predict now, it will look as if Galileo proposed carrier pigeons as a means of communication for the XNUMXst century.
– In discussions about existing data storage technologies, the question of their cybersecurity constantly arises. Will the new technology be safe from the point of view of hacking, misuse?
“Any technology can be vulnerable, but making changes to widely distributed biological archives will be much more difficult than hacking digital archives on the Internet.
Hacking the biological archive is tantamount to changing the genome of every fish in the sea or every insect on Earth. The difficulties of such an intervention will be exacerbated by the need to genetically alter all organisms buried deep underground, or organisms suspended in individual salt crystals. Malicious intervention, of course, can be very skillful, but, in my opinion, all the methods and practices of “hacking” known today will simply become obsolete.
— You are also known as an artist and founder of bioart or “science art”. You put a map of the Milky Way in a mouse’s ear, Goethe’s poetry inside a bacterial genome. What is the purpose of such projects? Is it for contemporaries or are these works also aimed at passing on such a new art form to posterity?
— I don’t think that someone becomes an artist simply because he decided so. If the choice is possible, then we are more inclined to do something more practical – accounting, for example, or advocacy. You are an artist because you cannot help being one. This is both a gift and a curse. And since this is, in fact, an involuntary gift, you create in accordance with your own special vision – for yourself and for those who like it.
– What do you think is a real threat to humanity – extraterrestrial beings, smart robots that we ourselves will create, natural disasters that we will provoke?
“We have heard a lot of apocalyptic scenarios: something like that will fall from the sky and destroy everyone. Or people will suffocate as a result of harmful emissions into the atmosphere due to the immoderate appetite of mankind for energy production. Or the destabilization of democracy will begin, followed by the collapse of the economy. But there are still pandemics, and much more. We live in a very dangerous world, and there are a lot of frightening theories in it. The more dangerous it becomes, the more terrible thoughts we have. This, in fact, is the problem.
In philosophy, psychology, and the social sciences, there is a principle called the Pygmalion Effect, which is about how our beliefs become reality.
In Greek mythology, Pygmalion was a genius sculptor who fell in love with Galatea, a marble sculpture he created himself. Pygmalion suffered so much that the gods took pity on him and revived the sculpture.
Simply put, our beliefs about others influence our actions, which in turn influences others’ beliefs about us and provokes them into actions that only reinforce our assumptions. The Pygmalion Effect is a self-fulfilling prophecy: if you decide Friday the 13th is a bad day, chances are it will be.
The bottom line is that if our visions become reality, we would be better off relying on the few who have these optimistic visions. I would say that the main threat to humanity is that such optimistic people may not be enough.
— Do you agree with the British gerontologist Aubrey de Gray that we can live forever?
“The prospects for increased life expectancy will most likely require significant changes in human physiology. Perhaps so serious that we can talk about a new kind of hominid. Human reproduction will obviously have to decline, we will have to sacrifice entire layers of innovation and creativity intended for future generations.
It also seems to me that the increase in life expectancy will not affect all people. It will go hand in hand with an even greater division of the population into haves and have-nots.
Is it fair and reasonable to “ransom” our lives at the cost of the lives of all our descendants? Hardly. Yet, whether we like it or not, death gives meaning to human life.
What do you think a normal human day will be like in 50 years?
– A friend once told me that, contrary to all the laws of physics, I was stuck in the future, but we have enough problems understanding what constitutes “the present.” Neural signals are transmitted at a speed of 16 miles per hour, i.e. it takes 22 milliseconds for the brain to realize what just happened. And to this are added various other time gaps that are inherent in the human sensory apparatus, they can reach several tenths of a second.
Consciousness is always forced to rely on the past. Everything else is either memories or predictions, and both, as you know, can be erroneous.
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