On this week's on the media, we stretch our imaginations to ponder a future when humanity is cut off from its electronic records, a digital dark age.

The internet is a peculiar beast. It remembers things that you wish it would forget, and it forgets things you wish it would remember.

Big solar storm has happened. If it had hit us, we'd be living in the 1800s right now.

We just expected that we had some sort of guardian angel of techno-archiology

that would just solve our problem in the most absurd way possible.

There was a sudden power surge in northern Quebec, just a fraction of a second.

Then, like a big circuit breaker, the whole system shut down.

Isn't DNA itself a digital storage medium for information?

It's not all bad.

Dark tape has survived the meltdown of the human race.

It's very positive.

By losing everything, I could start over again.

Been surf Margaret Atwood, Solar Flares DNA Dust after this.

From WNYC in New York, this is On the Media.

I'm Bob Garfield.

And I'm Brooke Gladstone.

This week, we're engaging in some chillingly informed speculation.

What would happen if we as a species lost access to our electronic records?

What if, either by the slow creep of technological obsolescence or sudden cosmic disaster,

we no longer could draw from the well of knowledge accrued through the ages.

What if we fell into a digital dark age?

We do know that the March of Progress,

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