DNA sequencing and Moore's Law
It's an analogy, and if anything, it understates the rapid advances in sequencing technology.
In the early years of the International Human Genome Project, DNA sequencing was done using gel electrophoresis, a technique that was heavily labour-intensive and rather prone to errors.
Then in 1998, a new technique called capillary sequencing became available through a machine called the Applied Biosystems Inc. 3700, which allowed greater quantities of DNA to be sequenced at lower cost, with far less human involvement, and with a lower error rate. This ushered in "high throughput" sequencing and allowed the human genome to be sequenced far faster than had originally been thought possible when the Human Genome Project was started.
Sequencing technology has continued to develop extremely rapidly. In the past three or four years, several companies, including 454 Life Sciences, Illumina and ABI, have developed machines that can sequence amounts of DNA equivalent to several entire human genomes in a day. It's reached the point where the real problem is how to store the vast amounts of raw data which these machines produce. The Grauniad ran a good article last week:
I'm an astronomer by training, but for the past ten years I've worked at one of the world's leading DNA sequencing centres. If telescopes had developed as fast as DNA sequencing technology, Galileo would have been using 10-metre telescopes with adaptive optics back in the early 17th century.