[Flick Lives]

The genetic code uses a 64-letter alphabet called codons.

God apparently went with 64-bit addressability. Good future-proofing.

[Windcatcher]

I guess God called base64Encode().

[ifinnegan]

“The genetic code uses a 64-letter alphabet called codons.”

Thanks for culling out this sentence from the article.

It’s a great example of why these articles need to be taken with a grain of salt. The above sentence is totally wrong.

These articles are written by scientifically illiterate journalism or communications majors in PR offices.

[zeugma]

The genetic code uses a 64-letter alphabet called codons.

God apparently went with 64-bit addressability. Good future-proofing.

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Well, considering how insanely dense DNA is, from an information standpoint, you'd need 64-bit addressing just to get started. I'd actually be surprised if 64-bits were enough.