A multidisciplinary team reported a platform that converts enigmatic intracellular structures into devices capable of recording RNA activity over time, providing an unbiased record of a cell’s functional output. The technology captures dynamic transcriptional events and encodes them in a retrievable format, enabling retrospective analysis of cellular responses during development or disease progression. The innovation promises a new class of molecular diagnostics and research tools to chart temporal cellular events that are otherwise hard to capture by snapshot assays. Further validation in diverse cell types and integration with single‑cell workflows will determine utility for longitudinal studies and drug screening applications.