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From: bs_wab@ux63.bath.ac.uk (Bains)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.astro,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: DNA for interstellar messages
Message-ID: <2743@bath63.ux63.bath.ac.uk>
Date: 1 Jul 88 16:24:38 GMT
Reply-To: bs_wab@ux63.bath.ac.uk (Bains)
Organization: University of Bath, England
Lines: 26

Around the end of my undergraduate career I remember reading a paper
on the possibility of using DNA sequences for interstellar communication.
The idea was that you launched your message into space as a virus,
and it replicated itself wherever it landed. As only one virus needed
to 'get through' to spread the message this meant that a few tonnes of
virus could be as effective as gigawatts of maser beams. The authors
searched the sequence of a gene from a bacteriophage (Phi-X-174 I
think) for evidence for a message, (but fairly obviously found none:
if they had, I would not need reminding of the details!)

Or so the theory went. While full of rather substantial holes, it
might be more reasonable when combined with recent discoveries of
'catalytic RNA', and I would like to track down the paper to follow
this up. It was published before summer 1979, and I think in ICARUS.

Has anyone a) come across this paper before or b) come across similar
ideas anywhere else?

Many thanks for your help.

William Bains     
Department of Biochemsitry 
University of Bath
Claverton Down
Bath BA2 7AY
UK