Geneticists spent more than a decade getting their first complete reading of the 3 billion base pairs of the human genome, which they finally published in 2003. But today's rapid sequencing machines can run through that much DNA in a week, and are busily churning out multiple sequences from an ever-expanding list of species. Meanwhile, astronomers working with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey telescope in New Mexico have mapped some 25% of the sky since 2000, obtaining data on more than 200 million objects. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, scheduled for completion atop Chile's Cerro Pachon in 2015, will gather that much data in one night.
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