This story caught my eye because using DNA for data storage — plant DNA, in that case — was part of one science fiction book I read (I believe it was I, Jedi, by Michael A. Stackpole, published in 1999). The concept is undeniably neat, and it made perfect sense in the context of the story, but I can’t figure out what purpose it would serve in reality.

“We’re thinking hundreds of millions of years” — what knowledge would be relevant over hundreds of millions of years, that couldn’t be more safely stored by other means?