Tech 2 has published an article revealing that the Deep Purple classic "Smoke On The Water" has been stored on DNA:

In the first instance of the use of DNA as a long term archival quality storage medium, Twist Bioscience and Microsoft have saved historic performances of Deep Purple's "Smoke On The Water" and Miles Davis' "Tutu" on DNA. The performances were taken from audio recordings saved in the archives of the Montreux Jazz Festival. The audio recordings have been stored in DNA for UNESCO’s Memory of the World Archive.

Bill Peck, chief technology officer of Twist Bioscience says, "This is a very exciting project: we are now in an age where we can use the remarkable efficiencies of nature to archive master copies of our cultural heritage in DNA. As we develop the economies of this process new performances can be added any time. Unlike current storage technologies, nature’s media will not change and will remain readable through time. There will be no new technology to replace DNA, nature has already optimized the format."

DNA is made up of four nucleotide bases, adenine, cytosin, guanine and thymine, commonly referred to as A, C, G and T. To store the data, the researchers converted the binary file consisting of a series of 0s and 1s into sequences based on A, C, G and T. In this proof-of-principle project, 00 represents A, 10 represents C, 01 represents G and 11 represents T.

The Vinyl Guide, a podcast for fans and collectors of vinyl records, interviewed Ian Gillan recently about his records, his time with Black Sabbath, his avoidance of nostalgia and the history and future of the Deep Purple, reports Darker Than Blue.

“Ian says they have dates next year and confirms that they have talked about another studio album. He also mentioned that if and when DP get around to actually finishing, his retirement plans include solo albums and tours!”

Listen below: