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From: bilbo@pnet02.cts.com (Bill Daggett)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.astro,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: DNA for interstellar messages
Message-ID: <4719@gryphon.CTS.COM>
Date: 3 Jul 88 17:20:31 GMT
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Organization: People-Net [pnet02], Redondo Beach, CA.
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bs_wab@ux63.bath.ac.uk (Bains) writes:
>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!)

Maybe it has worked...  Maybe WE are the message!  :-)

Bill

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