The idea – the writer’s Françoise Bastide and the semiotic expert Paolo Fabbri – from which the project was born Ray Cat Solution it seems crazy: what if they come genetically modified cats to do it change color in the presence of radiation? This idea apparently crazy – and probably in part it is – was born as a solution for protect future humans from radiation. In fact, in tens of thousands of years we do not know what will become of our species and it cannot be ruled out that our descendants may accidentally come into contact with permanent storage sites for radioactive waste. We therefore need to devise a method to warn them before it is too late and i iridescent cats (also called “Ray Cats“) could be a valid option… perhaps. But let’s go into more detail.
In the 1984 The United States Department of Energy organized one round table with scientists And linguists, there Human Interference Task forcewhose objective was to propose solutions to minimize the probability that, in the future, any person could accidentally come into contact with radioactive waste. The idea of written signs was discarded almost immediately, because in just 1000 years they would probably be illegible, and it is precisely here that Bastide and Fabbri entered the scene.
They argued that cats, having coexisted with humans for thousands of years, could communicate warnings to us in a way not too different from what canaries did in coal mines. Specifically, our four-legged friends should be genetically modified to discolour or shine in the presence of radioactive material. But not only that!
To ensure that this color change was immediately associated with radiation danger, it would have been necessary to deliberately spread it among the population proverbs, songs And stories so as to make this imagery enter popular culture, so that even in the future, even without written testimonies, people will know “For heard” that if the cat becomes colored, then that is a dangerous area. These are the words of the research team:
Such an animal species should inhabit the ecological niche of man, and its role as a radiation detector should be anchored in cultural tradition by introducing a suitable name (e.g., “Ray Cat”) and appropriate proverbs and myths. .
Obviously a project like this presents a huge number of challenges both on the floor ethical than on the floor technician – given that at the moment genetic engineering procedures for successfully modifying cats have not yet been hypothesized. And this also explains why the idea of the Ray Cats died almost in the bud… at least until 2015when the movement Ray Cat Solution proposed these ideas again but in a more contemporary way, complete with video presentations and call to action aimed at both industry experts and a general public.
