2019年经济学人 数据存储(2)

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The result was an object that contained, encoded throughout its structure, the blueprints¹ necessary to produce more copies of itself.结果得到了一个物体，其整个结构中都含有并编码了制造更多副本所必需的蓝图。By clipping a tiny fragment of plastic from the finished bunny's ear and running the DNA² within through a sequencer,通过从成品兔子耳朵上剪下一小块塑料碎片，并通过测序器对里面的DNA进行检测，the researchers were able to recover those blueprints and use them to make further generations of DNA-infused bunnies.研究人员能够复原这些蓝图，并利用它们制造出更多代的注入DNA的兔子。Satisfied with their proof of concept, they then repeated the trick by encoding a short video in DNA and fusing it in plexiglass, a transparent³ plastic.对他们的概念证明感到满意后，他们通过在DNA中编码一段短视频并将其融合在树脂玻璃（一种透明塑料）中，重复了这一把戏。They used the plexiglass to make a lens for a pair of spectacles.他们用这种树脂玻璃做了一副眼镜的镜片。Once again, clipping a tiny sliver⁴ from the lens and dissolving the plastic away was able to liberate⁵ the DNA, which could be used to recover the video.然后再从镜片中剪下一小块并且将它溶解，并释放出可以用来恢复这段视频DNA。The cost of both producing and reading DNA is falling precipitously.产生和读取DNA的成本都在急剧下降。The price of reading a million letters of the genetic⁶ alphabet has fallen roughly a million-fold since the start of the millennium⁷.自2000年以来，读取100万个基因字母的价格已经下降了大约100万倍。

For that reason, Drs Erlich and Grass hope their idea might one day have all sorts of uses.出于这个原因，Erlich和Grass博士希望他们的想法有一天能有各种各样的用途。One, they think, could be to embed⁸ relevant information into manufactured goods.其一，他们认为可以将相关信息嵌入到制成品中。They give the example of custom-fitted medical implants¹⁰ that contain a patient's medical records and the precise measurements needed to make another implant⁹.他们给出了定制医疗医学植入体的例子，这些植入体中包含病人的医疗记录，以及制作另一个植入体所需的精确测量数据。A second use, for the privacy-minded, could be steganography—第二个用途，对于注重隐私的人来说，可以是速记式加密—the art of concealing¹¹ information within something apparently¹² innocuous (this was the idea behind the DNA-infused spectacles).是一种将信息隐藏到看似无害的东西里的艺术（这就是注入DNA眼镜背后的想法）。Their most futuristic idea is an entire world full of objects which, like biological life,他们最具未来感的想法是一整个充满物体的世界，就像生物生命一样，contain all the information needed to make copies of themselves in every part of their structure.世界中包含在结构的各个部分复制自己所需的信息。Drs Erlich and Grass have dubbed¹³ their technology the "DNA of things", and it is certainly a clever idea.Erlich和Grass博士称他们的技术为“事物的DNA”，这确实是一个聪明的想法。But the next job might be to come up with a snappier name.但下一项工作可能是想出一个更时髦的名字。