Radioactive. Nuclear Waste. Biohazard.

These words are charged with profound meaning for us today, but that meaning is sure to be lost on future generations. How do we warn our descendants about the radioactive mess we've left behind?

The subject is tackled in a fascinating article at Grist.com. Author John Stang asks: How should the U.S. government warn generations hundreds of years from now about buried nuclear waste — material that can remain deadly for millennia.

As the author points out, our language, along with our warning labels and hazard symbols, will read like hieroglyphics centuries from now.

Their explorers might one day approach a site containing buried waste much the same way that we'd approach a mummy's tomb. If they open the crypt, what they find inside will kill them.

The Department of Energy established the Office of Legacy Management in 2003 to manage radioactive and chemical waste, environmental contamination, and hazardous material at more than 100 sites across the country. So far, they are only "in the infancy stages" of finding a viable solution.

Right now, government burial sites in New Mexico, Washington, Idaho and elsewhere, are cordoned off with little more than "keep out" signs and chain link fences.

Some ideas about how to communicate these hazards include:

• Vivid colors combinations, such as those found on snakes or bees. On a gut level, it indicates danger.
  
• Memory stewardship, or ingraining the dangers of radioactive waste into our folklore and stories.
• Universal symbols of danger, such as lightning bolts, teeth or claws. (Personally, I think an image of a dead guy could do the trick.)
  

Still, the question of how we realistically communicate the dangers is a haunting one. It's nearly impossible to imagine looking ahead to the year 3,000 and beyond.

Or, as Stang put it, "It's like a Viking trying to conceive of an astronaut, then trying to pass a note to him."