Heros: strange symbol

The symbol (like a modified integral sign) that showed up on Issac's
painting, in the character stream on Mohinder Sr.'s computer and in the
swimming pool at the LA house where we met the mind reading cop... We
saw it again when the cop was in the bar and he spied the black guy
staring at him. He had it on his necklace.

Mark Nobles...

The same symbol showed up on the computer screens in the Doctor Who
episode "School Reunion" on 10/13. That episode has much in common with
Heroes, actually, with the aliens taking on characteristics of the
races it meets. Perhaps the Heroes are not from here, as Claire
suspects, but are Krillitanes who have forgotten their past.

marc0ni...

As for the character stream, notice that the symbol appeared in the
negative space *between* the characters of the DNA sequences -- most
noticeably amidst the rows and columns separating the sequences.

Tere...

That's not hard. The just used characters with a high minimum density
for the background and a significantly lower density within the symbol.
Then the shape of the symbol is visible when as the details of the
individual characters is lost. It's sort of like those images that are
built out of characters.

marc0ni...

I was actually looking at things from the context of the story itself.
If we first stipulate that the symbol within the background wasn't
generated by the professor himself (an action that would make him less
credible as a researcher and so less worthy of the audience's
credibility), that would only leave one alternative for how the symbol
came to be. The symbol would have to have been there all along, waiting
for some researcher to find it while trying to prove the theory that
DNA supporting superhuman abilities is now popping up in the genome.

The symbol itself points to the non-randomness of the changes to the
genome. Others might suggest otherworldly agencies like "aliens". But
perhaps it's something even weirder; maybe DNA itself is a self-aware
molecule and living things are its means of reproducing itself.

Mark Nobles...

It suggests not only a non-random process, but some non-human
intelligence at work bringing together exactly the superpowers at
exactly the time needed to save the world, then leaving the Heroes to
figure out how to use them to save the world. Is the source of the
powers going to be important? Perhaps only to Claire's father's group,
which places them at odds with the Heroes who don't care about why they
have the powers, only what they need to do with them.

wdstarr...

And that was, of course, the one person in the bar whose mind was
silent to Officer Parkman.