I haven't seen a Netflix doc' that wasn't dumbed down and over simplified to the extent it isn't just wrong but also condescending and insulting to any viewer with more than 3 braincells.

Understandable, but in my defense I’m unfortunately really really stupid while having a hobby that requires some intelligence TT So I’m probably their target audience

Oh don't get me wrong I still sometimes watch them :D

Well, glowing gmo plants have already been engineered a couple years back. Not sure they are commercially available yet tho.

On the other hand, using plants to store data sounds like a strange idea. Pretty unwieldy and fragile for a memory stick, I'd say.

Do you have any article/research I can read about the glowing plants? That sounds amazing!

Well that's all well and good but did you know that every archeologist in the world is wrong and there were advanced civilizations long before we thought they existed???

Anyone remember Beyond 2000? I can’t recall any of that stuff coming true

About as realistic as the scenes from Back to the Future Part II. Now where's my hoverboard?

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Yes and they travelled the stars using an ancient gateway that can only be accessed by psychedelic drugs.

> I can't recall any of that stuff coming through

Then you'll be pleasantly surprised when you browse the topics they covered. Of course, everything isn't spot on but, to my surprise, there are quite a few that we've achieved or surpassed and a good chunk that are imminent. I was particularly surprised by how many space objectives are now current science instead of sci-fi aspirations.

I mean, there’s some pretty compelling evidence and Hancock isn’t alone in his theories, nor does he ever say they’re 100 percent true.

Just because they glow doesn't mean they're good for power. It's the same process as fireflies, and it's cold.

Well, this is the original publication, I guess: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-020-0500-9.epdf

But you can literally google "glowing gmo plants" for less in-depth text and more pics.

I think I've seen some ads for commercial plants like that, but I can't find it now. Maybe it was a crowdsourcing project that failed later.

iirc the idea was storing the data in DNA, not in the plant structure, so-long as the plant has any viable cells the data would be intact, theoretically. DNA is supposedly extremely data-dense.

Yeah I figured but it’s still so cool!

Thank you so much!

Ah. that makes a bit more sense. Bit still unpractical for most purposes, imo

> genetically modified plants could be used to store data

Why would you want a storage medium that literally rots?

>generate light

Sure, but you will get very very little light from them. Basicly useless outside using them for decorations.

> even create buildings.

Sure, but we already do that. Its called wood.

What im trying to say is, its not realistic at all.

Compelling =//= interesting. They’re interesting thought experiments. Nothing more. And I’ve done some extensive study on many of Graham’s theories. He’s a crack pot, but it’s fun to imagine his theories.

Thanks for the link! Yea a lot of those did come true. I recall one about room temperature super conductors and several about flying cars. I think there were a few about fusion but that topic seems to really be making some progress lately

Sounds like avatar where they store all those memories in that tree.

It is kind of sad to he honest. It's a complex chemical process that got solved halfway by a scientist, a startup company then tried to sell that they could figure out the last half and make it a consumer product. They made some progress but locked up a bunch of the work behind a patent, and then failed to make a glowing plant. Leaving the whole process locked legally and not easily picked up by the next person.

Capitalism can only give us avatar on the big screen. R.I.P.

(And the plants were small herbaceous annuals, arabidopsis. Theory was to figure it out there then market and make enough to move on to larger and more useful plants, house plants, etc.)

Sounds good! I'm gonna check it out. Has anyone seen Year Million? I think it's on Disney+

I'm not particularly attached to my body or my genes. I'm ready to become a plant-human hybrid like Poison Ivy.

ELI5 why Graham is a crackpot? Which of his ideas is disproven?

I mean, glowing GMO animals have been commercially available for 2 decades, so plants can’t be that much harder.

You're not allowed to be excited about things on this subreddit.

What parts were compelling? I’d be happy to discuss. I’m an archaeologist.

That’s not how it works. The burden of proof is on the one making the claim.

I think one should explain why they refer to someone as a crackpot first.

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I’m not. Haha. I’d love to hear more so what I shouldn’t believe when they have dating technologies and things like that that place these structures before the conventional timeline.

But then your data can ripen and grow into more nutrient dense data

Everyone says it but not many have much to back it up. I’m with you.

Because he has no credentials, makes no evidence based claims, invents wild theories, and is universally acknowledged as a pseudoscientist?

You mean C14 dating? That can only be used to date organic materials. So if used to date a structure, you’ve got to have a pretty compelling reason why, e.g., here is a trench dug to build a wall, and inside the infill of the trench there were some carbonized seeds.

But even this only gives you a “terminus post quem.” This means the earliest POSSIBLE date. In archaeology, confusing terminus post quem with an absolute dating is a very amateurish mistake.

Fair enough. What about the seismology readings determining structures are indeed underneath that have never been acknowledged.

How is this better for protecting your data than a solid metal stick?

I keep getting downvoted and I don’t understand what I said wrong TT I genuinely think that glowing plants are cool

Oh Gosh, not this. In my opinion, scientific discovery/research shouldn’t be patented. Does this mean that the experiment is now stuck? Or are other companies/universities working on a different method?

I always imagined that the kittens that glowed would breathe fire when they got big.

Make sure to not overdo it and turn into Groot instead!

That’s one of the worst ones, because this stuff is SO mundane and Graham tries to pass it off like some huge mystery or conspiracy. Look up “remote sensing.” It’s a major part of what modern archaeologists do and has nothing to do with a conspiracy.

Mankind is about 140,000 years old, give or take. The oldest continuous culture is an aboriginal tribe at about 40,000 years. That leaves about 100,000 years unaccounted for. Oh yes, there were civilizations before the current one.

Glowing plants were a bit of a dud so far, but new work is in progress.

One of the many issues is that even if it works, should it be released into the wild, ever? If not, once it exists, can we avoid it? (because it's "soo cool", it just takes a few seeds)
What is the impact of lights on nocturnal life? (Althought that ship has kind of sailed with the light bulb).

The nice thing is that it takes extra energy to glow at night, whichever way it is done. So the glowing plant may be unlikely to become invasive.

The pictures needed long-term exposure to get enough light.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glowing_Plant_project
https://www.wired.com/story/inside-the-glowing-plant-startup-that-just-gave-up-its-quest/

MIT uses another approach:
https://news.mit.edu/2021/glowing-plants-nanoparticles-0917

We universally acknowledged there was only 1 planet less than 100 years ago.. it means nothing that something is 'universally acknowledged'.

His theories don't seem that wild to me. We know that modern humans have existed for at least 100,000 years. Why wouldn't some of them behave like us and have civilisations?

Many of his claims are backed by evidence, such as new, more refined carbon dating estimates and newly discovered ancient sites.

Just because someone doesn't have an official degree in something doesn't make them any less credible. I run multiple businesses but never studied business in any formal setting. Did Leonardo Da Vinci have a degree in biology? Does his drawing on the human form have no value because he didn't have the proper credentials?

Ok, so why haven’t we found evidence for it?

That’s a really reasonable concern! Sad to hear that the startup failed but it’s not an easy project so they still contributed to the research

I haven’t. What is it about?

They have found some interesting stuff really deep underground. But most of it is probably underwater now. The surface of the planet is constantly changing. And there is a vast area under the oceans that no one has ever explored. I think we just haven’t looked in the right places yet.

I haven’t watched it in forever but it’s a similar concept documentary tv show. What the future will look like in figurative year million. I remember a couple of interesting things they mentioned but Idk if I should spoil it. I wanted to rewatch it but I had to end my account recently. Last I saw there was only one season

That sounds really interesting, thank you for the recommendation!

It definitely means something when something is universally acknowledged. Yes, science has been wrong in the past, but it is highly unlikely that one dude vs the entire scientific community is going to have a legitimate point. And Graham’s points are not compelling. The thing is, we do have an idea of what people have been up to for the last 150k years. Lots of fascinating stuff, and archaeologists are constantly trying to expand our knowledge of early man. So, leaving aside the natural reaction of feeling somewhat personally insulted that someone would think all of us archaeologists are so stupid, I pose to you the question: if there truly were compelling evidence for lost cities, why wouldn’t archaeologists be the ones trying to publicize this? After all, countless sites have been discovered and publicized by archaeologists in the past decades…some which are pretty impressive.

What are the “more refined” C14 dates you’re referring to? Carbon dating usually gives you a window of 100-300 years.

Also, the idea that Da Vinci was some untrained amateur is really untrue.

It’s hard to evaluate your claim when you don’t provide any specific information.

here, take my upvote

because glowing plants are cool

some say even cold

Yeah, but Avatar always has a Secret Door.

Also, rereading your comment, I’m not sure where you got this thing about people thinking there was only one planet less than 100 years ago. Humans have been aware of planets for thousands of years. The word itself comes from Ancient Greek.

>We universally acknowledged there was only 1 planet less than 100 years ago.. it means nothing that something is 'universally acknowledged'.

This is just flat out wrong and shows a deeply flawed understanding of the history of astronomy. Mars has been well understood to be a rocky planet since at least the 1600s.

I'm not saying all archaeologists are stupid and have missed some clear writing on the wall, but I do think people can be close-minded in many areas of science. If you don't agree with what someone is saying then tell us why their ideas are stupid. Instantly labelling someone a crackpot (appreciate it wasn't you but you picked up the thread) immediately silences the debate and for a layman like me (not an archaeologist) I still don't understand why his ideas are wrong.

I'm probably mistaken about the carbon dating. I read something about the dating of something being changed. Again, not an archaeologist.

If someone said the earth was flat, I would laugh. But then if someone said explain to me why the earth isn't flat, I'd be able to absolutely prove the flat earther wrong with hoards of evidence.

So how is it that pyramids appear all over the world, supposedly made by hunter gatherers?

We already use plants for data storage, it's called paper /s

Sorry, I meant no other planets outside our system.

Yes, sorry, I meant no other planets outside our system.

Hm. Just spit balling, but if you wanted to store data for a really REALLY long time (thousands of years or longer) embedding it in the DNA of a really resilient plant or fungal species is not the dumbest idea I've ever heard.

Has some fairly obvious advantages over a diamond disk or something along those lines, particularly in terms of redundancy.

It’s practical for a lot of reasons. DNA takes 1000s of years to degrade vs digital devices which constantly have to be replaced every few decades.

It is multithreaded, DNA can be read at any entry point in parallel along the strand.

It’s cheap: every living thing on earth can store DNA, it’s dirt cheap.

It’s compact and dense.

It can be expanded past base 4 to any arbitrary base with synthetic nucleotides.

https://news.microsoft.com/innovation-stories/hello-data-dna-storage/

Definitely, I understand where you are coming from. And I'll also say that a lot of the onus is on archaeologists here, since we haven't always done a great job of making what we do accessible to the public. A lot of that has to do with the shit funding we receive from public institutions, but that's another conversation altogether. Personally, I'm happy to discuss these things.

> So how is it that pyramids appear all over the world, supposedly made by hunter gatherers?

So, two things here. I am assuming by "hunter gatherer" you mean societies that did not primarily engage in agriculture. Depending on your definition of "pyramid," most of the very famous examples (the pyramids at Giza, for example) were most DEFINITELY built by agricultural societies. Earthen structures, meanwhile, like the pyramids or "mounds" at Cahokia, were built both by agricultural and "mixed" societies who relied on a combination of settlement + nomadic approaches to gathering resources. And yes, Cahokia (near modern St. Louis, MO) was a veritable CITY, something that has been pretty much completely ignored by modern Americans (but not the archaeologists who have studied it). If you want to find a real "lost city," look no further.

Basically, and this is a bit of an oversimplification but generally true, there is a linear relationship between the amount of surplus resources a community gathers and the likelihood they are going to build monumental features in stone. But pre-agricultural societies also like building fancy stuff when they can. I guess I fail to see why that's a mystery.

As for the pyramid itself, I'm not sure why it would be surprising that many civilizations in different parts of the world would all build large monuments as temples or funerary markers. Between them, lots of differences characterize the different "pyramid" structures built by various civilizations.

Not having the technology to detect exoplanets doesn't mean people thought they didn't exist. They were postulated since at least the 1500s, and people were actively looking for them over a hundred years ago (even if the tech to find them wasn't quite there yet).

We've had a pretty good feel for the structure of the macro world for a lot longer than I think you are giving people credit for.

Also fair enough! Thanks!

> genetically modified plants could be used to store data

A lot of this comes down to applications of CRISPR, which is a bacterial immune system component that scientists have been using for the past 10+ years as way to "copy and paste" genes.

The "CRISPR array" is a portion of the genome that can be used to store arbitrary genetic sequences. Bacteria use the "CRISPR array" to store fragments of viral DNA for the immune system.

CRISPR has been modified, however, allowing us to store arbitrary data like videos inside a living cell's DNA

https://www.statnews.com/2017/07/12/crispr-bacteria-video-harvard-wyss/

and CRISPR has been used to implement digital-stye logic gates inside living cells:

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms1516

These devices have been used in conjunction to coerce cells into recording -- into CRISPR -- information about their own internal activities, such as how many times a cell has undergone mitosis

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6492567/

Definitely! Feel free to hit me up with any random archaeology related questions if you ever want. Happy to do my best to answer.

I've seen the show, and I think those concepts are novel and far fetched. The closer and better reality is looking at how humans can get back to nature more and use nature in a more symbiotic way. Things like algae power generation, mushrooms for breaking down oil spills and plastic, more trees in urban corridors to bring down heat islands. Humans are out of balance with nature but it has so many problems solved if we just bring more of it into our lives. We don't need them to glow, we just need to recognize the strengths they already bring.

Thanks for your explanation. As a layman, I find this stuff absolutely fascinating. I personally believe the Egyptian pyramids were cast like concrete. It seems the simplest explanation. It is strange to me that so many pyramid shapes popped up in different continents. Is it that the shape in particular is just attractive to humans, or was it part of a shared culture going further back as Hancock posits?

Also, is it true, as the documentary implies, that many stone circles are basically ancient calenders? That was most intriguing to me. I know when we look at star configurations over time that it can lead into '9-11 = -2 so 2022 is the 2nd coming of christ' territory, but i did find it fascinating.

Postulated by a few yes, but universal consensus was unsure if they even existed.

Why do you think the pyramids at Giza were cast? Concrete hadn’t been invented yet, and we know that they were made of limestone and granite blocks.

I think the inclination to build upwards is pretty easily explained. Early religion was based on the natural world, and the most obvious way the natural world is observed is via the change of the seasons and cycle of day and night. So people, much like today, fixated on the sky. What’s out there?

Something like this would explain why early societies liked to build “upward” monuments. But again, beyond this pretty simple fact, the specific characteristics of pyramids vary pretty widely across the world. Plus, a lot of early structures (eg the temples at Malta) don’t really seem to be going for elevation.

I think the extent to which Neolithic buildings reflect astronomical patterns is a matter of debate. In some cases it seems pretty cut and dry, but some of the other stuff I’ve seen seems like a stretch. Overall, I am inclined to believe that, yes, the desire to map out time and the movement of celestial bodies went hand in hand with spirituality and played a big role in motivating early building projects.

I think it’s important to acknowledge that universal consensus also means something different today. We have the peer review process, which is objectively a sounder way of determining the validity of claims (compared to “the Pope agrees” or whatever). There’s a reason people like Hancock avoid submitting their claims to peer review.

I think the pyramids were cast using a mixture of limestone and granite. They might have built wooden frames (dyes) to cast the mixture, then once set, burnt the wood. There have been wooden structures found inside the great pyramid. This way, the building of the pyramid is easily explained. Lots of people lugging buckets up and down the structure to pour mixture into a dye. I can't conceive of any other way it could've been done.

They might have used heat or a chemical reaction (like concrete) to liquefy and solidify the mixture.

Storing data in plants might make some sense when I think about it. To "read" the data encoded in DNA would require you to consume some of the DNA, which means you only have a limited number of reads of that data before you run out. Putting that DNA into the genome of a plant would allow you to cheaply generate a bunch of copies of that data, and this data could then be stored indefinitely as seeds that could be planted again if more copies are needed.

I'm not sure how the show depicted it, but I think the idea of having a plant flash drive or something sounds unrealistic. However, I could see it being used as a form of cold storage in the future, but it's probably not even close to being a practical solution. There's also the issue of how much data could be crammed into a plant's genome before it starts effecting the plant's ability to be a plant.

We are a long way away from these things if they ever happen, but there is an interesting convergence in technology that might happen in the long future. Basically, nano tech already exists, but we did not make it. Cellular life checks all the boxes nanotech aims to achieve. It is highly likely that if nanotech ever enters mainstream usage (consumer products, building materials, etc.) it will take the form of bio-engineered cellular life, not tiny robots. Why make your own when you can just hijack the existing proven platform? It's not likely this would take the form of large-scale plants, rather in microscopic things like fabrics, adhesives, maybe even data processors (so called wetware computers). Though it might happen that we use cybernetic engineered "animals" with remote control tech embedded into them for certain labor/exploratory tasks as self-maintaining drones.

IMO it's far more likely we achieve near perfect mastery of biology before we ever have serious civilization on other planets, even within our own solar system. Once we have that much control, it's just another form of machinery/tech.

Appreciate that. Happy holidays!

You can store all your porn in a palm tree!

Or asparagus!

Y'all are sleeping on genetically modified algae as a way to provide light. Store in the day, emit at night. No power needed.

Big brain time.

If you think that's cool then you should check out glow in the dark rabbits.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/13/glow-in-dark-rabbits-scientists

I have a secret to tell you: plants have been used to create buildings for thousands of years.

As cold storage, maybe. But I can't imagine it being viable for any immediate use, aside from exchanging secret spy messages.

Thank you, kind stranger. I’ll cherish it!

OMG THIS IS AMAZING!! That looks so cool TT It gives me Liv in the future vibes

This was such an informative read, thank you so much!

Maybe an eggplant may be more fitting

That’s true as well!

SO... We could potentially encode data in plant DNA for future generations. They would just have to A) Figure out it's there, B) decode it, and C) speak the language it's encoded in.

Might as well put a message in a bottle and fling it around Jupiter.

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Cold storage is for cheaply and compactly storing large quantities of information that doesn't need to be accessed often. Yes, in order for DNA data storage to work, we have to have a means of decoding it. I'm not sure how this is a criticism of this specific technology as this would apply to literally anything that we use to store information.

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We can store data on anything. Even plant DNA. And every few years someone goes "OMG, what if we stored data in Ocean Waves!!! It's incredibly impractical and almost totally useless, but it's theoretically possible!" And then some BBC talking head runs a special on "Are Ocean Waves the future of data??" And says that within ten years you'll be loading GTA from the nearest beach and talking about data access for poorer landlocked countries.

Since we can store data on anything, the next question to ask is "Is it practical? Is it useful? Should I encode it on a giant gold disk with a huge sign, or embed it in the DNA of plants like a puzzle from a 90's adventure game?" So, what data would we encode this way, and what would we need it for? I'm just pointing out that while it's theoretically possible, it's not really useful.

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Except that it could potentially pass the data onto future generations.

The surface of the planet hasn't changed that drastically in 140000 years. Sea levels varied, but the oceans and continents have been in almost exactly the same places.

There are no secret hidden cities at the bottom of the ocean that were above water 140000 years ago. Small settlements just offshore, yes. But in open ocean, no.

DNA is a pretty lossy system though. I mean hell, that's how evolution happens. If you wanted to preserve some data in DNA for thousands of years, when you came back to it it may have evolved into something completely different.

​

If you were to store it on a USB stick or a hard drive it would last forever provided it was stored properly.

Like most of the popular posts in this sub, it really boils down to your definition of “realistic”. Like, there’s a huge difference between theoretically realistic or scientifically realistic vs economically realistic or politically realistic. The concepts you list seem realistic from a scientific standpoint. Will they be viable in a real world scenario? Possibly, but that question is so much harder to answer.

Sorry but your answer gives me the feeling that you didn't even read the article.

After you guys talked about glowing plants, then you seem to be amazed by glowing rabbits, who are used for scientific experiments.

Prove me wrong please. How exactly do you think that is so cool?

I figured they write it on a plant that could live thousands of years, like a tree. That way they could access the same DNA.

USB sticks, if not plugged in once in a while will eventually lose their data. The time for this is about 10 years or a bit more.

Hard drives might be a better option than a USB stick for long term storage, but they use magnets to store data and eventually they will deteriorate. With that said I have like a 20 year old hard drive that the data on it is still readable, so they can last a while. But I doubt data would be readable after a 100 years. Not impossible, depends on the quality of the drive.

But multiple generation data storage like 1000 years, you’d need to switch the data to a new drive every so often and keep plenty of backups. So the DNA method would be an interesting work around to this problem.

> when you came back to it it may have evolved into something completely different

That might not be a problem

Bioluminescent rabbits used to demonstrate a potential technique of intervention in deadly diseases need to justify being cool?

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Sounds like the Game of Thrones where the Children of the Forest store their memories in the weir woods. Dang, avatar ripped off everything.

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I think you dont understand what I meant by my message. I think that it's important for people to understand that the cool part is the as you said: "intervention in deadly diseases". All I meant by my answer is I am getting a feeling from the response by u/alakeya that he/she thinks the cool part is the glowing rabbits and not understanding the real point of curing the diseases

I imagine at the very least they'd attract a lot of bugs.

No, I think that you’re misunderstanding something here. Me saying that something is cool does not exclude the scientific and medical research that has been put through and its purpose. Every single medical treatment has a side effect, and honestly, the fact that unlike some other potential treatments that can be a possible cause of death, this one causes bioluminescence, is pretty damn rad. I don’t understand what you’re trying to imply here, you’re bothered that I got excited by two interesting researchers?

Glo-fish are a genetically modified fish species that glow neon colors under black light (UV heavy light). They’ve been on the market around a decade or so now. These fish have been modified with jellyfish DNA to produce fluorescing molecules in their skin. Here’s a link:

https://shop.glofish.com/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=FY22

Kind of makes you wonder if that isn’t what all the “useless” sequences in our dna are because this has all happened before

All I did was ask you to explain why you're excited. I thank you for that. Nothing more, nothing less ;)

Have a good day

edit: that is why I said I'm getting a feeling, please explain. Didn't mean no offense by it what so ever.

Bioluminescent animals are cool to me by default. Showing someone fireflies for the first time because they're from an area in which they aren't indigenous is like the first time someone sees snow in their 20's. Bioluminescent bunnies are pretty cool little guys to me by default. The fact that we can make them is also kinda cool. As far as if we should be making them, we're not really discussing that. It's intentionally not within the scope of this discussion. To me it feels like this is what bothers you.

It’s all good, man. Sorry I snapped, seemed like you were trying to portray my thought process as something different. Have a nice day too!

The difference here being that DNA, unlike ocean waves, is a naturally occuring molecule that evolved to store information that is encoded and decoded. How then is it a stretch that this molecule could be harnessed to store digital information? Furthermore, you ask what applications it might be useful for, and I already said in my original comment that cold data storage seems like a possible application. I also stated that there could be issues with the technology that either make it impractical now, and may even make it an inviable technology.

​

You said that encoding information in plant DNA is "like a puzzled from a 90's adventure game" which seems to be a continuation on your idea from your original comment. I'm not sure why this needs to be said again, but yes, for an information storage medium to be useful, you need to know how to decode it. Once again, this is true for any storage medium, be it a vinyl record, a magnetic tape, a CD, or a solid state drive.

​

I'm honestly not sure what you're attempting to criticize about anything I've said. It feels like you read the first sentence of my comment and decided that it needed to be attacked because it showed the slightest hint of optimism about an emerging technology. Would it have been more interesting if I had just said "it wont work?"

It's now thought to be mostly remnants of ancient parasites like viruses and transposons.

Oh I’m sure it’s something like that. I just like saying “this has happened before” for dramatic effort.

>DNA is a pretty lossy system though

Depends on the species, and on a time scale of thousands of years, DNA can be very stable compared to most other storage mediums. On a timescale of millions of years everything is pretty lossy.

I think plants are chemical like self assembling factories so they have potential to be used like factories today, but it's probably not worth the risk of unpredictable interactions in the biosphere which seem far more likely if you engineering biological factories vs mechanical ones.

It's good imagination fuel and while plants are best at making other biological products their is some overlap .. like plants can make fuel even though we don't view it in the same category as food and medicine which they also make, but if we tried to make flat screen TVs with plants I think their rate of production vs land use would not be worth it.

I think self assembling robots will generally be better than involving biology unnecessarily, we have a lot more control and less chance of side effects in out giant soup of a biosphere.

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Lmao I know nobody on reddit bothers to read the articles but you didn't even bother to read his 6 line text post!

I'm just spitballing here. You can grow a tree and give it a pulse of electric current to somehow alter the ever slowly growing rings in the middle of the tree (the rings you count on a cut down tree to tell its age) that will give it nano changes that can be sequenced into 1s and 0s (microscopic) then to get the data out; you could blast the tree with a sonar device to pick up the microscopic 1s and 0s to pull out the data. All machines in this example only exist in my imagination.

Bad Dragons fit nicely, too.

Its not, was just a proof of concept

To add in to the data portion in plants this is entirely possible but the reasons to do it for most things aren’t there. All code at the end of the day boils down to a 1 or a 0 and DNA boils down to 2 letters (technically 4 but they are supposed to always match with their partner letters so functionally 2) and these 2 letters can be assigned to the 1 or 0 value. With CRISPR there isn’t a reason we CAN’T put a specific sequence or data into a plant as long as it either doesn’t use that nonsense DNA to make anything or if we don’t actually care about it living.

Now just because we can doesn’t mean we will or that it’s useful. It would be much harder to read this DNA compared regular memory on your computer and much more costly too. At best it might serve as a kind of biological trade mark for genetically engineered specimens? I’m struggling to see the application of it but I can’t claim to be an expert but as far as it being possible it definitely has been for probably longer than you think now

215 petabytes per gram.

Definitely attempt Groot status ~ I doubt Poison Ivy can regenerate.

He assumed it was another AI post😅

DNA storage is a very real possibility

The plant bit you mentioned reminded me of a project by MIT bioartist Joe Davis in which he inserted the entire English Wikipedia into an apple tree in order to create a literal, living tree of knowledge

It’s not the practicality. It’s the application. Storing data in 200lb 3 feet wide HDDs in the early 70s was a bit impractical. Ideas are magic. Some applications aren’t practical, but the ones that are with the right input can change the world

Wasn’t that mechanic technically introduced in the 2011 book? That would mean GoT ripped off Avatar (obviously it didn’t, hiveminds are just a common fantasy motif).

You might argue then that Avatar ripped it off the Speaker for The Dead book series.

How are you holding up? Because I'm a potato

You could also watch this great documentary about a whole planet of glowy plants/storage devices. The documentary is called Avatar.

We need to push ideas even if they seem unrealistics

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These are adorable!!

Didn’t know about this artist, his works sound extremely interesting

His Wikipedia is definitely worth a read, he was one of the pioneers of transgenic organisms and has had some fun impact in my field of study.

They genetically modified a yeast to produce morphine but the yields were too low for it to be commercially viable. I hope some noble scientist can work on the process and leak us a strain :-)

Over 80% of the ocean floor has never been explored by man.