At the same time, he was refining a method of transferring files from one machine to another across a network.

BBC: H@ppy birthday to you

But he said that because it was the first time an epidural had been used in heart surgery "we kept ready as a standby the conventional method of heart surgery through a heart and lung machine".

BBC: heart op

Dr Page thinks he has a method that could be ready before Dr Deutsch's omniscient machine.

ECONOMIST: The universe, it appears, may not be alone

The method requires a series of advanced laboratory procedures, microarray chips and a high-speed gene-sequencing machine to assemble the strands in the proper order, correct any errors and then read the final text.

WSJ: Harvard Researchers Turn Book Into DNA Code