The hypothetical study of the hereditary information system used by extraterrestrial life, which may bear no resemblance to Earth's DNA/RNA/protein model. It's the search for the "code of life" when the coding language, hardware, and storage medium are all unknown. Could it be based on different nucleotides, use a quadruple helix, be stored in crystalline lattices, or be a non-chemical informational pattern? Alien genetics posits that DNA is just Earth's local software, and the galactic app store has other, unimaginable programs for building and running a organism.
Example: An Alien Genetics lab wouldn't sequence "genes"; it would try to decipher how a silicon-based microbe on Titan passes on its structural lattice patterns to its "offspring," or how a plasma-based entity in a star's atmosphere maintains its coherent form and replicates information magnetically. It's genetics without the central dogma.
by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal February 3, 2026
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