dna

This November, the Defense Logistics Agency will require companies selling microcircuits to the military to stamp their products with an unlikely seal of authenticity: plant DNA.

It’s an innovative initiative in the fight against counterfeit computer chips, which has been a major concern in the Senate, but it’s only one piece of the answer. DLA plans to put out a formal Request For Information sometime this month to ask industry to offer other, complementary authenticity-checking technologies, and Congress is watching closely. Keep reading →

Last week I read about a research team at Harvard led by George Church that encoded Church’s next book into the molecules of DNA. As the write-up in the Harvard Medical School web page, said:

“Although George Church’s next book doesn’t hit the shelves until Oct. 2, it has already passed an enviable benchmark: 70 billion copies-roughly triple the sum of the top 100 books of all time.” Keep reading →