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Not sure why you're getting downvoted. It's definitely plausible that a prehistoric civilization would have left genetic traces of meddling with other species.

Not sure why you're getting downvoted. It's definitely plausible that a prehistoric civilization would have left genetic traces of meddling with other species. Whether they'd have done it deliberately or not is more of a philosophical question. Regardless, it's another interesting question: if another civilization bred and domesticated, and possible modified, other species 200 million years ago, what genetic traces would be left in the genome of current life?

madaxe_again 6y ago
200 million years is a fair old while in terms of genetic drift, however if you were building DRM or copyright information into your engineered forms, you'd likely want to do it in such a fashion that the form would be nonviable without that set of codons. So you'd look for things like sudden changes to respiratory complexes that seem to require a large leap, or essential amino acid codings, and try to correlate those changes via genetic clocks with the kind of thermal events described in the article. One thing that came into existence around the PETM was mammals, with all of their novel adaptations. Still, it could be (is more likely to be) correlative, not causative - or causative in a different way - a changed environment could exert extreme pressure on forms, causing some novel mutations to take hold.
- withinboredom 6y ago
  https://media.giphy.com/media/GAXMzzd2XElnG/giphy.gif https://media.giphy.com/media/GAXMzzd2XElnG/giphy.gif Life will find a way.
- imglorp 6y ago
  There's another place to store information which isn't in the genes themselves but in the mapping of codons to amino acids. This location would be invariant across generations. This paper on "biological SETI" made some noise when it came out and then disappeared, literally gone from arxiv, perhaps because the crackpot smell is too strong? I am curious if it merited either debunking or further study but didn't see much of either. If there is a signal there, it seems more plausible that prior inhabitants put it there than ET. https://web.archive.org/web/20190925044740/http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1303/1303.6739.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20190925044740/http://arxiv.org/...
- menybuvico 6y ago
  I suspect any evidence short of multiple artifacts from multiple locations would be circumstantial at best, regardless if the traces are in the planet's geological record or in the genetic code of an ancestor of whatever the supposed ancient ones ate for dinner. On the other hand, multiple correlating indicators could give a pointer about where to look. Alas, it's likely such a place either deep underneath the ocean floor or that it's buried under kilometres of rock.

madaxe_again 6y ago

200 million years is a fair old while in terms of genetic drift, however if you were building DRM or copyright information into your engineered forms, you'd likely want to do it in such a fashion that the form would be nonviable without that set of codons. So you'd look for things like sudden changes to respiratory complexes that seem to require a large leap, or essential amino acid codings, and try to correlate those changes via genetic clocks with the kind of thermal events described in the article. One thing that came into existence around the PETM was mammals, with all of their novel adaptations. Still, it could be (is more likely to be) correlative, not causative - or causative in a different way - a changed environment could exert extreme pressure on forms, causing some novel mutations to take hold.

withinboredom 6y ago
https://media.giphy.com/media/GAXMzzd2XElnG/giphy.gif https://media.giphy.com/media/GAXMzzd2XElnG/giphy.gif Life will find a way.
imglorp 6y ago
There's another place to store information which isn't in the genes themselves but in the mapping of codons to amino acids. This location would be invariant across generations. This paper on "biological SETI" made some noise when it came out and then disappeared, literally gone from arxiv, perhaps because the crackpot smell is too strong? I am curious if it merited either debunking or further study but didn't see much of either. If there is a signal there, it seems more plausible that prior inhabitants put it there than ET. https://web.archive.org/web/20190925044740/http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1303/1303.6739.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20190925044740/http://arxiv.org/...
menybuvico 6y ago
I suspect any evidence short of multiple artifacts from multiple locations would be circumstantial at best, regardless if the traces are in the planet's geological record or in the genetic code of an ancestor of whatever the supposed ancient ones ate for dinner. On the other hand, multiple correlating indicators could give a pointer about where to look. Alas, it's likely such a place either deep underneath the ocean floor or that it's buried under kilometres of rock.