BEETHOVEN it鈥檚 not. But it does sound mellow and jazzy, if a little disjointed. It鈥檚 music made by translating into sound the sequences of amino acids that make up proteins. Rie Takahashi and Jeffrey Miller of the University of California, Los Angeles, say that their music is more listenable than previous attempts to 鈥渕usicalise鈥� proteins and DNA.
The pair assigned each of the 20 amino acids not to a single note but to a triad chord, a group of three notes which produce a pleasant harmony when played together. To smooth out the music, they limited its melodic span to just 13 notes.
Finally, the researchers introduced rhythm by assigning time values to each chord based on DNA codons (Genome Biology, vol 8, p 405). The music of the human protein thymidylate synthase A can be heard on Miller鈥檚 website .
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