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[Replaced_Texan]

Because I think this is very, very cool:

In a mystical use of genetic modification, a U.K. art group based in Japan has found a way to ensure that a person's DNA lives on long after their demise.

Biopresence, founded by Georg Tremmel and Shiho Fukuhara, intends to infuse the DNA of recently deceased loved ones into trees, turning the plants into living memorials.

"Basically, it can also be seen as a complex pattern of silent mutations," said Tremmel.

The trees will have no visual or significant genetic changes, because all the human genes will be stored inside the tree using Joe Davis' DNA Manifold method, which only affects the genotype of an organism.

In a nutshell, Biopresence will piggyback the human DNA underneath redundant triplets of nucleic acids that already exist in the tree. These redundant triplets are not actually expressed in the tree, making them available to store excess information.

"By taking advantage of this variability, any arbitrary data can be written 'underneath' a gene without altering its natural function," said Davis, who created the method Biopresence uses.

Biopresence hopes that the memorial trees will provide a setting that is more comfortable than a crowded gray cemetery where people can remember those who have passed on.