OK Go to Issue Album on DNA

November 24, 2014 | Alt-rock band OK Go, a Grammy-winning group best known for its elaborate YouTube music videos, is enlisting the help of UCLA synthetic biologist Sri Kosuri to encode its latest album, "Hungry Ghosts," on a DNA molecule. Kosuri has previously rendered a book, Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves by George Church, in DNA, translating binary code into DNA bases. DNA molecules are sometimes touted as powerful storage platforms, given their incredibly high data density, longevity, and fidelity, although retrieving the data is still wildly impractical.

If the legal hurdles can be overcome, OK Go plans to sell DNA copies of "Hungry Ghosts" to its fans by dissolving the DNA in water and packaging it in plastic vials. The New Yorker's Andrew Marantz accompanied lead singer Damian Kulash to a lab at Columbia University Medical Center to check on the project's progress.