(continued) Having the data is only the beginning. As we know more and more about life, the universe, and all other subjects, as we double the amount of data generated by all humans within the next five years, we can begin to model, build, and scale to the point where we directly and deliberately guide the evolution of ourselves and many other species.
In 2010, three scientists--Craig Venter, Hamilton Smith, and John Glass--programmed a computer with a basic genetic sequence. Then robotic arms assembled this specific code using the four building blocks of DNA (adenine, thymine, guanine, cytosine). It was a little like building a very complicated, very tiny Lego-like structure. By the end they had constructed the world’s largest organic molecule. After discovering how to get this life program into a cell, the trio found it could turn one species into a different species. Some called it the world’s first synthetic life form, but it is really the first fully programmable life form.
Overwhelming the System With Data
As programmable cell platforms like these begin to act, and be programmed, like computer chips, we can make fuels or chemicals, absorb excess carbon, develop miniature vaccine factories, change the growth cycles of plants, regrow organs, and extend the human life span substantially. As we bring together Big Data and life sciences, this will drive further discovery, as well as the world’s economy, which in turn will drive unimaginable amounts of new data. MIT’s Sebastian Seung, who creates 3-D images of mouse brains, estimates that moving from current MRI machine resolution to light microscopy resolution will require increasing storage, per brain image, from one megabyte to a petabyte. But for us to truly understand the connections between neurons, we will need to use an electron microscope, meaning that each of our brains will generate a zettabyte-scale file.
So when we talk about Big Data and where it’s headed, remember: All of humanity, thus far, has generated 1.8 zettabytes of data in history--roughly the equivalent of the image of an entire human brain.
We are barely at the cusp of the Big Data-life sciences revolution, and we are already running out--of bandwidth, of storage, of space. Every day, FedEx trucks arrive at facilities around the globe to deliver hard drives by sneakernet, because it’s faster and cheaper to ship a big hunk of iron from China or Bangalore to Silicon Valley than to stream that data through painfully clogged pipes. Even the cloud, as we know it, could be overwhelmed by life sciences data accumulating 50 percent faster than we can store it. These challenges will, in turn, breed enormous new companies and breakthroughs.
Big Data started as a series of small waves but is morphing into the greatest tsunami of information that humans have ever seen. What we choose to do with all of this new data may lead to one of the biggest adventures of all time.
From The Human Face of Big Data, created by Rick Smolan and Jennifer Erwitt. © 2012 Against All Odds Productions. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
