Origin of DNA

Joost Vrielink <[email hidden]> wrote or quoted:

Quoted message said:

As I understand it, DNA is used for
development/replication in all life forms. Natural
selection would imply that it is the 'best' way to do this
(not stating all this as fact, just my perception so
correct me if I'm wrong). [...]

There's no such implication. Natural selection tracks local
maxima - not global ones.

Quoted message said:

Are there any other known frameworks similar to DNA used
maybe in the earlier stages of evolution or didn't 'life'
start until DNA was synthesized randomly? Did DNA evolve
from a simpler replication system?

DNA came from an RNA-based ecosytem - which was probably the
product of earlier replicators. It isn't known how many
different replicators have been used in the history of life
- but it's probably more than two.

Quoted message said:

Since DNA is basically the same in all life forms and has
been for millions of years, can it be expected that it
will not be replaced by something else in the future?

No - there are no grounds for thinking this. The genetic
system used by living systems has been replaced before - and
will be replaced again.

See:

originoflife.nettakeoverOpen ↗

Quoted message said:

In other words, is it perfect for sustaining life?

There's no reason for thinking it would be. In particular,
is shows signs of having evolved by random processes from
earlier forms - and lacks any sign of intelligent design.

In the last few hundred years dozens of new information-
storage media have become available for transmitting
heritable information between generations - and many are
becoming widely used.

It seems inevitable that in the future a heterogenous range
of substrates will be used by living systems to transmit
information between generations.

The media used in individual cases will depend on how
important stability and longevity is - on how important the
abitily to modify the information is, on how frequently the
information needs to be accessed or changed - and on a raft
of other factors.
--
__________
|im |yler timtyler.orgtimtyler.orgOpen ↗ [email hidden] Remove
lock to reply.

Joost Vrielink said:

Hi,

As I understand it, DNA is used for development/replication
in all life forms. Natural selection would imply that it is
the 'best' way to do this (not stating all this as fact,
just my perception so correct me if I'm wrong). Some
questions that I can't seem to find the answer to:

Are there any other known frameworks similar to DNA used
maybe in the earlier stages of evolution or didn't 'life'
start until DNA was synthesized randomly? Did DNA evolve
from a simpler replication system?

Since DNA is basically the same in all life forms and has
been for millions of years, can it be expected that it will
not be replaced by something else in the future? In other
words, is it perfect for sustaining life?

Thanks for any answers or pointers,

The fact that DNA seems to be the almost universal system
for encoding genetic information in no way suggests that
it is"perfect for sustaining life" or that it is the
"best" way to do it. It only suggests that it is an
effective way that ending up being used by those probably
gene-sharing protocells that ended up being the ancestors
of all living things. Certainly it is so well entrenched
into the molecular biological machinery (and has been for
several billions of years) that it is virtually certain
not to be replaced.

Many people think that RNA coding may have preceded DNA.
The fact that RNA can act as enzymes and as structural
components does suggest that an RNA world could have
preceded even the coding of proteins. In any case, the
ability to form double stranded structures with base
pairing does produce, as Watson and Crick so famously
pointed out many decades ago, a very nice mechanism for
information copying.

There don't seem to be any other candidates for such complex
information storage, duplication, and retrieval as the
DNA/RNA system. Still, that doesn't mean it is "perfect".

"Joost Vrielink" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

As I understand it, DNA is used for
development/replication in all life forms.

Almost all. Some viruses use RNA.

Quoted message said:

Natural selection would imply that it is the 'best' way to
do this (not stating all this as fact, just my perception
so correct me if I'm wrong).

The best that nature has come up with so far. More on
this below.

Quoted message said:

Are there any other known frameworks similar to DNA used
maybe in the earlier stages of evolution or didn't 'life'
start until DNA was synthesized randomly?

RNA was almost certainly used before DNA. Search the web for
"RNA world".

Quoted message said:

Did DNA evolve from a simpler replication system?

I'll break this into two questions. (1) Was there a simpler
system before RNA? (2). Did RNA "evolve" from that system,
or did it simply "replace" it? There are a variety of
opinions on the answers to both of these questions. You
should find links to these opinions from "RNA world".

Quoted message said:

Since DNA is basically the same in all life forms and has
been for millions of years, can it be expected that it
will not be replaced by something else in the future? In
other words, is it perfect for sustaining life?

Probably not perfect, but I doubt that it will be replaced.
The reason is that so much "infrastructure" has grown up
around RNA/DNA that it would take something like a miracle
to come up with both a better basic material plus all of the
infrastructure that makes that material work so effectively.
For similar reasons, you will probably never see silicon
replaced with a better semiconductor (such as gallium
arsenide) for electronics. Even though there may be better
materials around, there is not better infrastructure, and
there is no incentive to develop that infrastructure since,
by the time you develop it, the silicon infrastructure will
have gotten even better and the cost of your development
effort will have been wasted.

However, Tim Tyler is almost certain to provide a different
science fiction answer to this question. You can ignore
that, if you wish, but don't ignore what he says about clay
in his "simpler replication" answer. That is real science,
though not mainstream science.

Perplexed in Peoria <[email hidden]> wrote or quoted:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Since DNA is basically the same in all life forms and
has been for millions of years, can it be expected that
it will not be replaced by something else in the future?
In other words, is it perfect for sustaining life?

Probably not perfect, but I doubt that it will be
replaced. The reason is that so much "infrastructure" has
grown up around RNA/DNA that it would take something like
a miracle to come up with both a better basic material
plus all of the infrastructure that makes that material
work so effectively. For similar reasons, you will
probably never see silicon replaced with a better
semiconductor (such as gallium arsenide) for electronics.
Even though there may be better materials around, there is
not better infrastructure, and there is no incentive to
develop that infrastructure since, by the time you develop
it, the silicon infrastructure will have gotten even
better and the cost of your development effort will have
been wasted.

Won't electronics itself be completely replaced - buy
computers that either use atomic-scale machinery to perform
computation - rather than streams of electrons?

ISTM, that streams of electrons are likely to be both too
fat and too slow to last for very long.

Silicon semiconductors seem unlikely to go the distance to
me - since the whole "semiconductor" paradigm is destined
for the computing scrap-heap.

Speculating that such technology is here to stay strikes me
as rather like asserting that watches would always have cogs
and springs.

Existing infrastructure or no, *most* technology gets
replaced by better things as time passes. Perhaps the best
hope for persistence is being totally obvious and
fundamental - like a lever or a wheel. However, DNA doesn't
seem to qualify there.

Quoted message said:

However, Tim Tyler is almost certain to provide a
different science fiction answer to this question. You can
ignore that, if you wish, but don't ignore what he says
about clay in his "simpler replication" answer. That is
real science, though not mainstream science.

I think I may have skipped over the "clay" bit - but the
modern heritable materials are not science fiction.
Organisms really are using books, CDs, DVDs - and the like -
to transmit information between generations today.

Of course DNA has not been totally usurped - but it no
longer has anything like the near-monopoly on inheritance
it once did.

Its role has already been eroded by the new forms of
inheritance - even if it will not ultimately be displaced.

Personally I don't give DNA even the tiniest, miniscule
chance of survival in the long term. The technology that
produced it was primitive. It seems practically inevitable
that it will eventually be obliterated by the work of
intelligent designers and engineers.

It will go the way of many past genetic materials - as
described on:

originoflife.nettakeoverOpen ↗

I rather doubt whether there will ever be such an information-
storage monopoly again. Living systems have a range of
information-storage needs. The market is simply not a
one-size-fits-all one.

Information to be preserved over time might sometimes need
to be portable, accessible, secure, encrypted, compressed,
unchangable, easily changable, robust, authenticated,
anonymous and replicable.

This is a list full of conflicting demands - and will almost
inevitably be met by a mixture of systems.

DNA dates from the era when software and hardware were
intertwined.

Now, life has reasised that software and hardware can be
profitably divorced from one another - and that they can be
engineered separately - and so technological development can
occur on both fronts independently.

In other words, it's the message that matters - not the
storage medium.

The modern divorce between information and the medium used
for storing it has revolutionised computing - but it has yet
to penetrate biology.

However, the revolution will come. In the future many
organisms will have their heritable information stored
not in DNA - but in databases in the factories that
produced them.

DNA will change roles from storer of heritable information
to messenger between the database and the phenotype. The
resulting mDNA will thus follow RNA's route out of the
mainstream of biology - and into the periphery.
--
__________
|im |yler timtyler.orgtimtyler.orgOpen ↗ [email hidden] Remove
lock to reply.

On Thu, 20 May 2004 15:30:07 +0000 (UTC), Tim Tyler <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Perplexed in Peoria <[email hidden]> wrote
or quoted:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Since DNA is basically the same in all life forms and
has been for millions of years, can it be expected that
it will not be replaced by something else in the
future? In other words, is it perfect for sustaining
life?

Probably not perfect, but I doubt that it will be
replaced. The reason is that so much "infrastructure" has
grown up around RNA/DNA that it would take something like
a miracle to come up with both a better basic material
plus all of the infrastructure that makes that material
work so effectively. For similar reasons, you will
probably never see silicon replaced with a better
semiconductor (such as gallium arsenide) for electronics.
Even though there may be better materials around, there
is not better infrastructure, and there is no incentive
to develop that infrastructure since, by the time you
develop it, the silicon infrastructure will have gotten
even better and the cost of your development effort will
have been wasted.

Won't electronics itself be completely replaced - buy
computers that either use atomic-scale machinery to perform
computation - rather than streams of electrons?

ISTM, that streams of electrons are likely to be both too
fat and too slow to last for very long.

Silicon semiconductors seem unlikely to go the distance to
me - since the whole "semiconductor" paradigm is destined
for the computing scrap-heap.

Speculating that such technology is here to stay strikes me
as rather like asserting that watches would always have
cogs and springs.

Existing infrastructure or no, *most* technology gets
replaced by better things as time passes. Perhaps the best
hope for persistence is being totally obvious and
fundamental - like a lever or a wheel. However, DNA doesn't
seem to qualify there.

Quoted message said:

However, Tim Tyler is almost certain to provide a
different science fiction answer to this question. You
can ignore that, if you wish, but don't ignore what he
says about clay in his "simpler replication" answer. That
is real science, though not mainstream science.

I think I may have skipped over the "clay" bit - but the
modern heritable materials are not science fiction.
Organisms really are using books, CDs, DVDs - and the like
- to transmit information between generations today.

Of course DNA has not been totally usurped - but it no
longer has anything like the near-monopoly on inheritance
it once did.

Its role has already been eroded by the new forms of
inheritance - even if it will not ultimately be displaced.

Personally I don't give DNA even the tiniest, miniscule
chance of survival in the long term. The technology that
produced it was primitive. It seems practically inevitable
that it will eventually be obliterated by the work of
intelligent designers and engineers.

It will go the way of many past genetic materials - as
described on:

originoflife.nettakeoverOpen ↗

I rather doubt whether there will ever be such an information-
storage monopoly again. Living systems have a range of
information-storage needs. The market is simply not a
one-size-fits-all one.

Information to be preserved over time might sometimes need
to be portable, accessible, secure, encrypted, compressed,
unchangable, easily changable, robust, authenticated,
anonymous and replicable.

This is a list full of conflicting demands - and will
almost inevitably be met by a mixture of systems.

DNA dates from the era when software and hardware were
intertwined.

Now, life has reasised that software and hardware can be
profitably divorced from one another - and that they can be
engineered separately - and so technological development
can occur on both fronts independently.

In other words, it's the message that matters - not the
storage medium.

The modern divorce between information and the medium used
for storing it has revolutionised computing - but it has
yet to penetrate biology.

However, the revolution will come. In the future many
organisms will have their heritable information stored
not in DNA - but in databases in the factories that
produced them.

DNA will change roles from storer of heritable information
to messenger between the database and the phenotype. The
resulting mDNA will thus follow RNA's route out of the
mainstream of biology - and into the periphery.

Biological information storage and copying using DNA (or
RNA) has been around for billions of years. Human
information storage using "hard copy" writing on tablets,
papyri, manuscripts, and books has been around for thousands
of years. There is no form of digital information storage
that has lasted more than several decades. One of the
classic problems facing librarians and other professionals
in the information storage and retrieval business is to find
a method of information storage that is likely to still be
available 50 or 100 or 500 years from now! I have "archival
quality" mylar punched "paper" tape that is likely to last
in perfect physical condition for millennia. Unfortunately,
the tape is worthless because there are no punched paper
tape readers available any more. Similarly, my stacks of IBM
cards, although made of heavy-duty paper and therefore are
perishable, are still in excellent shape but are just as
unusable as my 8-inch floppies. Even the recent 5-1/4"
floppies are almost impossible to read and the 3-1/2"
floppies are quickly becoming obsolete. How long do you
think CD's or DVD's will last? As long as 8-track tape?

"Modern" methods may be more "effective" or more "efficient"
or "better". But they certainly do have their drawbacks.
Maybe biology was extremely clever to stay with a system
that works for such a long time! Why do you think it would
be "beneficial" to change, now?

r norman <rsn_@_comcast.net> wrote in
:"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

On Thu, 20 May 2004 15:30:07 +0000 (UTC), Tim Tyler
<[email hidden]> wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

However, the revolution will come. In the future many
organisms will have their heritable information stored
not in DNA - but in databases in the factories that
produced them.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

DNA will change roles from storer of heritable information
to messenger between the database and the phenotype. The
resulting mDNA will thus follow RNA's route out of the
mainstream of biology - and into the periphery.

Quoted message said:

Biological information storage and copying using DNA (or
RNA) has been around for billions of years. Human
information storage using "hard copy" writing on tablets,
papyri, manuscripts, and books has been around for
thousands of years. There is no form of digital
information storage that has lasted more than several
decades. One of the classic problems facing librarians and
other professionals in the information storage and
retrieval business is to find a method of information
storage that is likely to still be available 50 or 100 or
500 years from now! I have "archival quality" mylar
punched "paper" tape that is likely to last in perfect
physical condition for millennia. Unfortunately, the tape
is worthless because there are no punched paper tape
readers available any more. Similarly, my stacks of IBM
cards, although made of heavy-duty paper and therefore are
perishable, are still in excellent shape but are just as
unusable as my 8-inch floppies. Even the recent 5-1/4"
floppies are almost impossible to read and the 3-1/2"
floppies are quickly becoming obsolete. How long do you
think CD's or DVD's will last? As long as 8-track tape?

Quoted message said:

"Modern" methods may be more "effective" or more
"efficient" or "better". But they certainly do have their
drawbacks. Maybe biology was extremely clever to stay with
a system that works for such a long time! Why do you think
it would be "beneficial" to change, now?

The people at the U.S. National Archives and Records
Administration, based on an article I read several years
ago, tend to prefer stone tablets as the most viable long
term storage medium among the various technologies used by
humans to store information :-)

Yours,

Bill Morse

r norman <rsn_@_comcast.net> wrote or quoted:

Quoted message said:

Tim Tyler <[email hidden]> wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I think I may have skipped over the "clay" bit - but the
modern heritable materials are not science fiction.
Organisms really are using books, CDs, DVDs - and the
like - to transmit information between generations today.

Of course DNA has not been totally usurped - but it no
longer has anything like the near-monopoly on inheritance
it once did.

Its role has already been eroded by the new forms of
inheritance - even if it will not ultimately be
displaced.

Personally I don't give DNA even the tiniest, miniscule
chance of survival in the long term. The technology that
produced it was primitive. It seems practically
inevitable that it will eventually be obliterated by the
work of intelligent designers and engineers.

It will go the way of many past genetic materials - as
described on:

originoflife.nettakeoverOpen ↗

I rather doubt whether there will ever be such an information-
storage monopoly again. Living systems have a range of
information-storage needs. The market is simply not a one-size-fits-
all one.

Information to be preserved over time might sometimes
need to be portable, accessible, secure, encrypted,
compressed, unchangable, easily changable, robust,
authenticated, anonymous and replicable.

This is a list full of conflicting demands - and will
almost inevitably be met by a mixture of systems.

DNA dates from the era when software and hardware were
intertwined.

Now, life has reasised that software and hardware can be
profitably divorced from one another - and that they can
be engineered separately - and so technological
development can occur on both fronts independently.

In other words, it's the message that matters - not the
storage medium.

The modern divorce between information and the medium
used for storing it has revolutionised computing - but it
has yet to penetrate biology.

However, the revolution will come. In the future many
organisms will have their heritable information stored
not in DNA - but in databases in the factories that
produced them.

DNA will change roles from storer of heritable
information to messenger between the database and the
phenotype. The resulting mDNA will thus follow RNA's
route out of the mainstream of biology - and into the
periphery.

Biological information storage and copying using DNA (or
RNA) has been around for billions of years. Human
information storage using "hard copy" writing on tablets,
papyri, manuscripts, and books has been around for
thousands of years. There is no form of digital
information storage that has lasted more than several
decades. One of the classic problems facing librarians and
other professionals in the information storage and
retrieval business is to find a method of information
storage that is likely to still be available 50 or 100 or
500 years from now! I have "archival quality" mylar
punched "paper" tape that is likely to last in perfect
physical condition for millennia. Unfortunately, the tape
is worthless because there are no punched paper tape
readers available any more. Similarly, my stacks of IBM
cards, although made of heavy-duty paper and therefore are
perishable, are still in excellent shape but are just as
unusable as my 8-inch floppies. Even the recent 5-1/4"
floppies are almost impossible to read and the 3-1/2"
floppies are quickly becoming obsolete. How long do you
think CD's or DVD's will last? As long as 8-track tape?

Probably not very long - but it doesn't matter. Copying
means that the information can be preserved - even if the
medium is not. Not many physical bibles are around from two
millenia ago - but much of the information in them persists.
Similarly music and movies have migrated from one media to
the next, without much thought about whether they are being
stored on discs, tapes, or in silicon.

Quoted message said:

"Modern" methods may be more "effective" or more
"efficient" or "better". But they certainly do have their
drawbacks.

DNA falls to bits as well. It is only because the
information on it is repeatedly copied that it can last for
a long time.

Quoted message said:

Maybe biology was extremely clever to stay with a system
that works for such a long time! Why do you think it would
be "beneficial" to change, now?

We have already changed - in the case of some applications.

The motivation has been things like convenient write ability
and random access - things that DNA is poor at.

I *don't* think it would be beneficial for biology to switch
away from using DNA *today*. We haven't even mastered
cloning yet. Let's not put the cart before the horse.

However, I don't think DNA will go the distance - for
reasons I've already mentioned. The "one substrate" days
seem likely to be over and will probably never return -
there are too many conflicting demands on heritable storage
media for a one-size-fits-all medium to ever get much of a
monopoly again.

I reckon DNA will be obliterated more effectively than RNA
was in the last substrate switch. That's the nature of
genetic takeovers - the descendants tend to wipe out their
predecessors fairly effectively - and a few consecutive
takeovers would be likely to leave DNA in the dust.

Initially, there will be some NEW -> DNA -> RNA -> Protein
vectors at work - i.e. DNA will become mDNA.

However, in the long term, the whole method of gene
expression will be revamped and reworked by engineers -
and the existing middle men will be ripped out and
replaced by more functional systems which bear fewer signs
of their heritage.
--
__________
|im |yler timtyler.orgtimtyler.orgOpen ↗ [email hidden] Remove
lock to reply.

William Morse <[email hidden]> wrote or quoted:

Quoted message said:

r norman <rsn_@_comcast.net> wrote in

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Biological information storage and copying using DNA (or
RNA) has been around for billions of years. Human
information storage using "hard copy" writing on
tablets, papyri, manuscripts, and books has been around
for thousands of years. There is no form of digital
information storage that has lasted more than several
decades. One of the classic problems facing librarians
and other professionals in the information storage and
retrieval business is to find a method of information
storage that is likely to still be available 50 or 100
or 500 years from now! I have "archival quality" mylar
punched "paper" tape that is likely to last in perfect
physical condition for millennia. Unfortunately, the
tape is worthless because there are no punched paper
tape readers available any more. Similarly, my stacks of
IBM cards, although made of heavy-duty paper and
therefore are perishable, are still in excellent shape
but are just as unusable as my 8-inch floppies. Even the
recent 5-1/4" floppies are almost impossible to read and
the 3-1/2" floppies are quickly becoming obsolete. How
long do you think CD's or DVD's will last? As long as
8-track tape?

Quoted message said:

"Modern" methods may be more "effective" or more
"efficient" or "better". But they certainly do have
their drawbacks. Maybe biology was extremely clever to
stay with a system that works for such a long time! Why
do you think it would be "beneficial" to change, now?

The people at the U.S. National Archives and Records
Administration, based on an article I read several years
ago, tend to prefer stone tablets as the most viable long
term storage medium among the various technologies used by
humans to store information :-)

I believe that's the luddite information ministry you are
talking about there ;-)

Most other folks have got the hang of the fact that the
longevity of information is not merely a function of the
longevity of the medium in which that information is
stored - but also depends on any copies of the information
that are made.
--
__________
|im |yler timtyler.orgtimtyler.orgOpen ↗ [email hidden] Remove
lock to reply.

Tim Tyler <[email hidden]> wrote in news:c8mdpe$2534$1
@darwin.ediacara.org:

Quoted message said:

William Morse <[email hidden]> wrote or quoted:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The people at the U.S. National Archives and Records
Administration, based on an article I read several years
ago, tend to prefer stone tablets as the most viable long
term storage medium among the various technologies used
by humans to store information :-)

Quoted message said:

I believe that's the luddite information ministry you are
talking about there ;-)

Quoted message said:

Most other folks have got the hang of the fact that the
longevity of information is not merely a function of the
longevity of the medium in which that information is
stored - but also depends on any copies of the information
that are made.

No, their problem is precisely in making copies of the
information. They are well aware of the necessity of making
copies. And they carefully kept magnetic tape machines to
read the tapes that at the time were the "latest and
greatest" storage mechanism. The problem as it turns out is
that the magnetic tapes are very sensitive to the speed at
which they have been written - so they have to fiddle with
the machines, and reconstruct parts for them, so that they
can in fact make copies onto newer media. The article as I
recall also mentioned the problem with recent paper being
high acid (or whatever it is) causing it to fall apart
easily. And there is of course the "muller's ratchet" effect
of making copies of copies without spending a lot of time on
error correction.

Now obviously the current amount of information being
stored will not fit on stone tablets. But there is
something to be said for sticking with standard formats.
ASCII code is still with us, after all, and probably will
be for quite some time.

Yours,

Bill Morse

William Morse <[email hidden]> wrote or quoted:

Quoted message said:

Tim Tyler <[email hidden]> wrote in news:c8mdpe$2534$1

Quoted message said:

William Morse <[email hidden]> wrote or quoted:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The people at the U.S. National Archives and Records
Administration, based on an article I read several
years ago, tend to prefer stone tablets as the most
viable long term storage medium among the various
technologies used by humans to store information :-)

Quoted message said:

I believe that's the luddite information ministry you
are talking about there ;-)

Quoted message said:

Most other folks have got the hang of the fact that the
longevity of information is not merely a function of the
longevity of the medium in which that information is
stored - but also depends on any copies of the
information that are made.

No, their problem is precisely in making copies of the
information. They are well aware of the necessity of
making copies. And they carefully kept magnetic tape
machines to read the tapes that at the time were the
"latest and greatest" storage mechanism. The problem as
it turns out is that the magnetic tapes are very
sensitive to the speed at which they have been written -
so they have to fiddle with the machines, and reconstruct
parts for them, so that they can in fact make copies onto
newer media.

The usual idea is that you try to back up your data before
it becomes impossible to read it.

Quoted message said:

The article as I recall also mentioned the problem with
recent paper being high acid (or whatever it is) causing
it to fall apart easily.

Paper's a rather crummy long-term storage medium - not least
because photocopying is pretty low fidelity.

Quoted message said:

Now obviously the current amount of information being
stored will not fit on stone tablets. [...]

Stone tablets are worthless for plenty of other reasons
as well ;-)

Their lifespan is *not* a redeeming feature - unless you are
anticipating an imminent nuclear winter.

Those who want to make sure their data is well preserved do
not inscribe it on stone tablets. Instead they make backup
copies, store the copies in many locations - and expose them
on the internet ;-)
--
__________
|im |yler timtyler.orgtimtyler.orgOpen ↗ [email hidden] Remove
lock to reply.

On Wed, 26 May 2004 15:26:55 +0000 (UTC), Tim Tyler <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Paper's a rather crummy long-term storage medium - not
least because photocopying is pretty low fidelity.

Strange -- people are still reading books written 500 years
ago. People are even trying to read scrolls written two
thousand years ago (were the Dead Sea Scrolls written on a
paper-type substrate?) In any event, paper does date back
2000 years and material in excess of 1000 years is
certainly readable.

The value of paper is that you don't have to copy it, you
just preserve it.

Try that with digital! Put any form of digital recording you
want into a sealed jar, hide it, and see what remains
readable in the year 3000!

"r norman" <rsn_@_comcast.net> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

On Wed, 26 May 2004 15:26:55 +0000 (UTC), Tim Tyler

<[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Paper's a rather crummy long-term storage medium - not

least because

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

photocopying is pretty low fidelity.

Strange -- people are still reading books written 500

years ago.

Quoted message said:

People are even trying to read scrolls written two

thousand years ago

Quoted message said:

(were the Dead Sea Scrolls written on a paper-type

substrate?) In any

Quoted message said:

event, paper does date back 2000 years and material in

excess of 1000

Quoted message said:

years is certainly readable.

The value of paper is that you don't have to copy it, you

just

Quoted message said:

preserve it.

Try that with digital! Put any form of digital recording

you want

Quoted message said:

into a sealed jar, hide it, and see what remains readable

in the year

Quoted message said:

3000!

I recalled that Greg Benford had once been hired to research
what procedure(s) might be used to (1) identify long-lived
radioactive waste sites after very deep-time preservation,
and, (2) also to mark such sites with a clear warning in a
suitably lasting recording medium/reading-process. His final
report covered problems having to do with deep time declines
in society, eco-/geo-logical and other disasters/changes
affecting same, and the problems of obsolescence of media
readers, etc. As I recall, stone tablets were one of the
only securely stable mediums that would work. Deep-time is
somewhat longer than that so far discussed here, but it is
an interesting question.

The original short article I recalled was apparently later
turned into a book, which I hadn't known before googling the
subject; i.e., the book, _Deep Time: How Humanity
Communicates Across Millennia_ by Gregory Benford;
Publisher: Avon; (November 9, 1999) ASIN: 0380975378

"...the book talks about a project the author was on. a
nuclear waste site in new Mexico needed to have a way to
communicate to humans (or others) in the future that the
site is radioactive. since the radiation could last 10,000
years, the message would have to be able to be understood
centuries from now." --from Bree Freeman's review at
Amazon.com [see:
3Fv%3Dglance+deep+time+record+preservation&hl=en&lr=lang_en
Regards, ...tonyC

Sorry-in my previous msg the Amazon ref. got mangled--it
should be : amazon.comamazon.comOpen ↗
/0380975378/104-0674676-3851956?v=glance ...tonyC

"Anthony Cerrato" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

"r norman" <rsn_@_comcast.net> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

On Wed, 26 May 2004 15:26:55 +0000 (UTC), Tim Tyler

<[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Paper's a rather crummy long-term storage medium - not

least because

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

photocopying is pretty low fidelity.

Strange -- people are still reading books written 500

years ago.

Quoted message said:

People are even trying to read scrolls written two

thousand years ago

Quoted message said:

(were the Dead Sea Scrolls written on a paper-type

substrate?) In any

Quoted message said:

event, paper does date back 2000 years and material in

excess of 1000

Quoted message said:

years is certainly readable.

The value of paper is that you don't have to copy it,

you

Quoted message said:

just

Quoted message said:

preserve it.

Try that with digital! Put any form of digital

recording

Quoted message said:

you want

Quoted message said:

into a sealed jar, hide it, and see what remains

readable

Quoted message said:

in the year

Quoted message said:

3000!

I recalled that Greg Benford had once been hired to

research

Quoted message said:

what procedure(s) might be used to (1) identify long-lived
radioactive waste sites after very deep-time preservation,
and, (2) also to mark such sites with a clear warning in a
suitably lasting recording medium/reading-process. His
final report covered problems having to do with deep time
declines in society, eco-/geo-logical and other
disasters/changes affecting

same,

Quoted message said:

and the problems of obsolescence of media readers, etc. As

I

Quoted message said:

recall, stone tablets were one of the only securely stable
mediums that would work. Deep-time is somewhat longer than
that so far discussed here, but it is an interesting
question.

The original short article I recalled was apparently later
turned into a book, which I hadn't known before googling

the

Quoted message said:

subject; i.e., the book, _Deep Time: How Humanity
Communicates Across Millennia_ by Gregory Benford;
Publisher: Avon; (November 9, 1999) ASIN: 0380975378

"...the book talks about a project the author was on. a
nuclear waste site in new Mexico needed to have a way to
communicate to humans (or others) in the future that the
site is radioactive. since the radiation could last 10,000
years, the message would have to be able to be understood
centuries from now." --from Bree Freeman's review at
Amazon.com [see:

3Fv%3Dglance+deep+time+record+preservation&hl=en&lr=lang_en

Quoted message said:

Regards, ...tonyC