Scientists Just Stored The Hottest Album From 1998 In Literal DNA

The digital audio of an entire music album is to be stored in the form of genetic information for the first time, using technology developed at ETH Zurich. Coded in DNA molecules and poured into tiny glass beads, an album by Massive Attack will be preserved – practically for eternity.

A, T, G, and C are the 0s and 1s of living things. Unlike the code stored in silicon, data stored in DNA won’t degrade for thousands of years. And DNA can just hold a lot more data— one gram of DNA can store one billion terabytes of data (approximately a kajillion iPods).

Mezzanine’s “genetic code”. This section corresponds to 1⁄27000 of the information of the whole album. (Image: ETH Zurich / Robert Grass)

Now scientists at ETH Zurich have figured out how to store one of humanity’s great works in the inalterable medium of DNA: Massive Attack’s epic album Mezzanine, which came out on this date 20 years ago. The British trip hop duo’s masterpiece now lives inside 5,000 tiny glass beads, spread out over almost a million short DNA strands.

To squeeze data on DNA strands, it first has to be translated from binary (0s and 1s) to DNA’s four nucleotide bases (A, T, G, C). Then, researchers have to synthesize DNA molecules (a very complex process) that preserve that sequence perfectly. The sequences are then written onto those molecules. Once it’s dehydrated and stored under the right conditions, the molecules can last for thousands of years.

This isn’t the first time researchers have stored digital files in DNA; the Swiss scientists’ work comes in second place spot for the largest files stored in DNA (first place goes to Microsoft, after researchers managed to cram 200 megabytes — including a video from the band OK Go!, in HD — onto DNA).

Unfortunately, the process so far is very slow, and very expensive. But having Massive Attack’s masterpiece fully encoded in DNA will ensure that the future generations of cyber humanoids have some fresh 1998 beats to shimmy their appendages to.

Translating from digital to DNA

Microscopic image of a glass sphere with a diameter of 160 nanometres. The DNA molecules that store the audio information are in the thin, bright layer (arrow). The music of the whole album requires 5,000 of these spheres. (Photograph: ETH Zurich / Robert Grass)

Scientist Robert Grass and his colleague Reinhard Heckel, a former ETH scientist now at Rice University, translated the album’s digital audio into genetic code. “While the information stored on a CD or hard disk is a sequence of zeros and ones, biology stores genetic information in a sequence of the four building blocks of DNA: A, C, G and T,” explains Grass.

In order to keep data volumes manageable, Grass and his colleagues worked on the project using a music file which he had compressed to 15 megabytes using the Opus coding format. Opus is a compression software for audio data that is qualitatively superior to the well-known MP3. A US company is now in the process of producing 920,000 short DNA strands, which taken together contain all of Mezzanine’s information. TurboBeads, a Zurich-based ETH spin-off, will then pour these molecules into 5,000 tiny (nanometre-sized) glass spheres, each of which contains part of the information. Grass expects the project to be complete in a month or two.

One of the largest files stored in DNA

Robert Grass and Heckel developed this technology at ETH Zurich three years ago, ultimately storing the text of the Swiss Federal Charter of 1291 in one of these small glass spheres for a technical feasibility study. “What is new about the project with Massive Attack is that this technology is now also being used commercially,” says Grass. The 15-megabyte music album is one of the largest files ever stored in DNA. Microsoft reported a few months ago that it had stored a collection of files totalling more than 200 megabytes, and Technicolor stored a 22 megabyte video in DNA.

The 5,000 glass beads of the Massive Attack album are invisible to the naked eye. They will be stored in a tiny bottle of water, with a practically eternal shelf life. The DNA can be removed from the glass beads at any time, allowing the use of DNA sequencing to read the stored music file and play it back on a computer. “Compared to traditional data-storage systems, it is quite complex and expensive to store information on DNA," says Grass. "However, once information is stored on DNA, we can make millions of copies quickly and cost-effectively with minimal effort.”

To celebrate this Massive Attack is releasing DNA-encoded Mezzanine in spray paint can

Each can carries approximately one million copies of the LP

Massive Attack’s seminal album Mezzanine celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. To highlight the 1998 record, the group previously announced a very special reissue in which Mezzanine’s 11 tracks would be encoded into 920,000 actual strands of DNA. As if that weren’t ambitious enough, Massive Attack is now taking things a step further by making the album available as DNA-encoded spray paint.

According to a press statement (via FACT), the trip-hop outfit will release a limited number of aerosol cans containing a matt black paint featuring the Mezzanine DNA. Although the supply will be limited, supposedly each can carries approximately one million copies of the LP.

“It’s a creative way to store your back catalogue, although DNA-encoded spray paint is unlikely to be adopted by street artists seeking anonymity,”

Said Massive Attack’s 3D, a musician and graffiti artist who has long been rumored to be Banksy.

A Dr. Robert Grass of Zurich’s TurboBeads company explained the complex process of incorporating DNA into spray paint. “This digital bitstream of the album (0s and 1s) was first translated to 901’065 DNA sequences (A, C, T and Gs), each 105 characters long,” noted Grass. “The 901’065 individual sequences were then chemically synthesised resulting in a synthetic DNA sample, which fully represents the digital bitstream of the album.” The DNA sequences were then stored in “synthetic glass fossils,” which were in turn added to the spray cans.

It’s unclear just how exactly one can listen to or play Mezzanine in this form, but it’s sure to be one heck of a collector’s item.

Next month, a more traditional reissue of Mezzanine is due to hit shelves. Along with a remastered version of the 1998 original, it will come packaged with a second album featuring previously unreleased Mad Professor dub remixes sourced from the first Mezzanine recording sessions. These were intended to appear on a Mad Professor Mezzanine remix album that never materialized.