Slime for Messaging to Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI)

[Babak Makkinejad]

I am interested in using slime molds, alga, fungi, or bacteria for the purpose of interstellar messaging in lieu of other physical objects such as the plaque on the Voyager space crafts.

In other words, let us encode our messages to any sentient intelligence out there in such organisms and then communicate that message by spreading the spores of those organisms - with a suitable delivery capsule for re-entry into planetary atmospheres - into outer space.

Billions of copies of our messages could be distributed at relatively lower costs.

I am thinking of building message-specific organisms using CRISP-R or Gain-of-Function techniques, but I do not have any concrete information or ideas to share.

I also do not know how one can indicate to an intelligent being that this or that specific patch of slime mold contains a message from another species.

I read the short story "The Writing of the God" by Jorge Luis Borges (please see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Writing_of_the_God) when I was in high school ago and perhaps that has inspired me to consider this idea.