Chinese scientists are reinventing the ancient silk tradition by turning the fine fabric into a new data storage technology. The so-called "silk drive," a rewritable, high-capacity storage medium, can store both digital and biological information including DNA, blood samples and active pharmaceutical compounds. It can also be implanted into human beings for medical use, where it can remain in the body permanently or degrade at a predetermined time, according to the research team from the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.