iPhone App Sends DNA To The Stars

Sending the genetic code for fundamental protein that makes all photosynthetic life (and therefore almost all life on Earth) possible to alien stars? There’s an app for that! MIT artist in residence Joe Davis has, as well as one of the coolest titles it’s possible to have, an iPhone which was Areciboically connected to three distant stars.  Take a couple of goes at pronouncing that if you must, it’s worth it: Arecibo is an immense three-hundred meter radio telescope, and if you’ve ever seen GoldenEye you don’t have to imagine how cool that looks - you’ve already seen it. Joe MacGyver (an honorary surname we’re awarding him for this effort) wired his phone to the main transmitters via an old TV connector to transmit the genetic code of the RuBisCo protein to GJ83.1, Teagarden’s star, and Kappa Ceti.  Which kicks the hell out of your contacts, “Anne”, “Paul” and “Work.”

The problem is in the conversion: they translated our well-know G A Ts and Cs into two-digit binary codes based on molecular weight, so far so funky, but then the artist in Joe decided to turn those codes into extracts from the edict of Apollo engraved at the entrance of the temple at Delphi.  Which we’re sure is fascinating art but suddenly turns an earnest effort at interstellar communication something only an alien Dan Brown would understand (and even then only after a bottle of exo-absinthe and a serious blow to whatever it has instead of a head).  This, by the way, is where the iPhone came in, reading out the converted text file using the standard “Speak” application.

It’s still in awesome event, and the basic fact that it’s an obviously intentional message isn’t ruined by the deliberately convoluted communications convention.  The only downer involved was the opposition of some Arecibo staff - they were forced against the idea simply because it threatened their already endangered funding.  We live in a world where the attitude towards contacting extraterrestrials ranges from mockery to outright hostility, and the politicians in charge of spending range from flunking high-school science to mounting all-out attacks on reason itself.  So even if it’s an impenetrable riddle to all but John Davis himself, we’ll take any transmission we can get.

Luke McKinney

The RuBisCo Stars Story

Part I 

Part II