On the way home by car, Fang Yuan kept thinking about the conversation with Fu Wenhe just now.

The image of a civilization struggling to survive in the apocalypse comes to mind.

Perhaps in the next twenty years, humanity will face the same situation and the same choices.

Do everything you can to keep the evidence of the existence of civilization in the world.

Fang Yuan pondered, pressing the glass ball in his hand and slowly rolling it on the table.

"What are you thinking?" Han Youwei saw that he was thinking about it, so she leaned closer and asked in a low voice.

"It's nothing, I'm thinking about the topic I just discussed with Professor Fu Wenhe." Fang Yuan replied casually.

"Let's talk about it, let's think about it together, maybe there will be a different harvest." Han Youwei pursed her lips and smiled.

"I'm thinking, if there was a civilization on the terrestrial planets in the asteroid belt, then their civilization must have wanted to leave something behind before it was destroyed." Fang Yuan said with emotion.

"Indeed, if civilization cannot be sustained, something must always be left behind." Han Youwei nodded.

Niu Dazhi interjected: "If it were me, I would shoot a lot of videos and store them on the hard drive, and if someone finds the hard drive I left behind in the future, they can see my unruly image." ”

Eve cupped her cheeks, rolled her eyes and said: "The time scale of the universe is hundreds of thousands of years at every turn, and your hard drive is also a piece of scrap metal discovered by other civilizations." ”

"Then you say, what to save?" Niu Dazhi ran back to the topic.

"There is nothing that can preserve information for so long, tens, millions, or even hundreds of millions of years, and no matter can be preserved for that long without being deformed." Eve waved her hand.

"yes. Nothing can be preserved forever. Fang Yuan also agreed.

Han Youwei pondered: "If there is something that can be preserved forever, I think there is probably only life." ”

"Life is even more impossible, isn't it? What life can exist for hundreds of millions of years? Niu Dazhi shook his head in question.

Eve stretched out her hand and hooked Han Youwei's arm and said, "Youwei is right, if there is something that can be preserved for hundreds of millions of years, then there is only life, continuous life. ”

"I don't read much, so you can lie to me." Niu Dazhi still expressed doubts.

"You just don't read much, do you know how long Xiongba's life lasts on Earth?"

Eve didn't wait for him to answer, and continued: "Giant pandas have lived on the earth for 8 million years, look at the giant pandas 8 million years ago, isn't this the power of life?" It can last as long as 8 million years.

"And the Chinese sturgeon, which appeared on the earth more than 100 million years ago, is a living fossil.

"There is something even more powerful, the ginkgo tree, which appeared on the earth for 270 million years.

"What kind of hard drive do you, how can you keep it for so long? The thing that lasts the longest in the universe is, of course, life. ”

After listening to Han Youwei and Eve's opinions, Fang Yuan's eyes suddenly lit up: "That's right." If a civilization wants to record history and culture, it is useless to use any material, and perhaps using life to preserve information is the most ancient way. ”

"What? What are you thinking? Niu Dazhi blinked his eyes, he was stunned by Eve just now, and after listening to Fang Yuan's words, he was even more confused.

Han Youwei was surprised: "What do you mean ......?"

Fang Yuan raised the glass ball in his hand and said, "If the microorganisms in here come from the civilization in the asteroid belt, maybe something can be found in these microorganisms." ”

"You're saying that civilization might store information in microbes?" Han Youwei immediately understood what it meant.

Niu Dazhi scratched his scalp and said, "What do you want?" Microorganisms are not semiconductors, how can information be stored? ”

Eve squinted at him and said, "Your biology must have been taught by the physical education teacher." ”

Thinking of this possibility, Fang Yuan immediately copied the "base scalpel" and began to observe the microstructure inside the microorganism through the observation ability attached to this ability.

The structure inside the cell is simply swept over and the focus is on the gene sequence.

Genes are made up of base sequences with a double helix structure, which can be simply regarded as quadruple codes.

If there is strong enough genetic technology, it is entirely possible to record information in these base sequences.

As for whether changing the base sequence of a living organism will lead to biological variation.

Mutation is possible, but it won't be too much of a problem.

Ninety-eight percent of human genes are redundant, i.e., they are not expressed.

Therefore, most of the base sequences do not affect organisms.

As long as the gene technology is strong enough, it can record information in the base sequence of biological genes without affecting the survival of organisms.

Therefore, there is indeed a possibility that there is information in the genetic fragments of these microorganisms.

Of course, this is just Fang Yuan's whim, whether there is one or not, it needs to be verified.

Fang Yuan began to observe the base sequence of microorganisms with his ability, trying to find some patterns from them.

However, even if there is information stored in the genes of these microorganisms, it is impossible for normal people to directly read the content of this information from the base sequence.

First of all.

If the base sequence holds information, it should be quaternibal, which is completely different from the binary encoding used by humans.

Second, even if the coding of these base sequences is really seen, the language of human beings is different from the language of the asteroid belt civilization, and even if the information codes are extracted, we do not know what these codes mean.

However, Fang Yuan was still carefully observing, and the purpose was not to see what information was written in these base sequences, but to find out the possible information codes.

You can't see the content of the code, but it's still possible to see some patterns.

If the information is encoded by humans, it has specific characteristics.

If you look closely, you can see this.

For example, the successive occurrence of some specific coding sequences are obvious characteristics.

Fang Yuan looked carefully, looked at it, his eyes suddenly lit up, and a hint of surprise appeared on his face.

Seeing this expression on Fang Yuan's face, Han Youwei's heart pounded, and asked, "Is there really one?" ”

"Wait a minute, I'm not sure yet."

Fang Yuan only saw a fragment that looked like it had been recorded by man, but he couldn't be sure yet, and he needed to continue looking for it.

The method of finding is also very simple, looking for the same coding sequence, if you can find multiple identical segments, then it can basically prove that this is the encoded information recorded by intelligent life.

Fang Yuan continued to search, and two minutes later, he found the second paragraph, then the third paragraph, and then the fourth paragraph.

When he found the fourth segment of the same coded fragment, Fang Yuan knew that he should have discovered something terrible.