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Miles Davis' "Tutu" is The First Song to Be Encoded in Synthetic DNA
Miles Davis' "Tutu" is The First Song to Be Encoded in Synthetic DNA
Source: Twitter

Miles Davis' "Tutu" is The First Song to Be Encoded into Synthetic DNA

A breakthrough in digital storage technology

The physical space required to store a piece of information has been steadily shrinking for the last 40 years of personal computing. But it may have recently reached a final frontier.

READ: Here's The True Story Of When Prince Met Miles Davis

According to Pitchfork, Twist Bioscience, in collaboration with Microsoft and The University of Washington, has successfully stored two songs in a strand of DNA. Miles Davis' "Tutu" and Deep Purple's "Smoke On The Water" were the prestigious picks for the revolutionary project, each sourced from Montreaux Jazz Festival performances. It's being dubbed "the future of digital storage," as the space required to archive the entirety of Montreaux's vault (thousands of hours of audio and video) would occupy a space smaller than a grain of rice. And it's a necessary leap for archivists of all digital mediums, with Twist Bioscience promising synthetic DNA storage to last hundreds if not thousands of years, compared to the current max of a century "under precise conditions."

READ: The Okayplayer Interview: Robert Glasper On Miles Davis + Radical Jazz

Realistically, this tech won't be accessible in consumer-grade products for years, but the promise here is undeniable. And the selection of tracks to get the DNA treatment, commendable.