One code-writer's trick, for instance, was to encode dates using the 1, 461 days that make up a full leap-year cycle.

ECONOMIST: Financial technology: Beware the millennium | The

In recent years, they have found ways to encode trademarks in cells and poetry in bacteria, as well as store snippets of music in the genetic code of micro-organisms.

WSJ: Scientists Store King Speech, Shakespeare Sonnets in DNA