This was my response to Arch Out Loud‘s Open Ideas Call for Nuclear Landmark concepts for the WIPP in New Mexico.
Communicating a Message 10,000 Years From Now
Research
Many interesting ideas exist for how to make a marker system that warns people 10,000 years (the span of time the nuclear waste is dangerous) in the future. One of the most interesting ideas was proposed by French author Françoise Bastide and the Italian semiotician Paolo Fabbri. It involves engineering a breed of cat that glows in the presence of nuclear material, then creating folktales about how they should be avoided.