An astounding amount of information is recorded in DNA, so much so that found within a single DNA molecule (which cannot be seen with the naked eye) is enough information to fill an encyclopedia of 1,000,000 pages. In the nucleus of one cell is encoded enough information to control all the processes in the human body that would be contained in a giant encyclopedia of 920 volumes. For comparison's sake, one of the world's largest encyclopedias, the 23-volume Encyclopedia Britannica, has a total of only 25,000 pages. Within a microscopic cell, in a molecule found in its nucleus, much smaller than the cell itself, is encoded enough data to fill a store of information 40 times larger than the world's most thorough encyclopedia, the likes of which have never been seen before. It's been calculated that DNA's giant "encyclopedia" would possess up to 3 billion different instructions.
At this point, let's reflect on possesses instructions, those two words that fall from our lips so easily. In saying that there are billions of instructions in one cell, what we are talking about is not a computer or a library, but is a tiny sphere, smaller than a 100th of a millimeter and composed of just protein, fat and water molecules. That even one instruction, let alone millions of them, can be maintained within this tiny piece of tissue is absolutely amazing.
To store information today, people use computer technology, considered to be at the forefront of all other technologies. The amount of information that could be stored in a room-sized computer 20 years ago can now be encoded in a tiny microchip. But even this latest modern technology, the result of much effort and knowledge accumulated over many years, hasn't come close to the capacity of even one cell's nucleus for storing information. The following comparison explains the tiny size of DNA, and its amazing capacity for information storage:
The information necessary to specify the design of all the species of organisms which have ever existed on the planet… could be held in a teaspoon, and there would still be room left for all the information in every book ever written.3
How can a helix that we cannot see with our eyes, which is a billionth of a millimeter in diameter and formed from the coming together of atoms, store and remember such a huge amount of information? To this one question, add another: Each of the 100 trillion cells in your body can effortlessly recall one million pages of data, but how many pages of an encyclopedia can you-a conscious, intelligent human being-memorize during your lifetime?
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