American scientists have discovered an audio recording dating since 1860, 17 years before Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, France Presse informs. French Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville recorded the "Au Clair de la Lune" song in 1860, using a "phonoautographer", an invention able to transform sound waves in engravings on a paper surface, but without the possibility to ever again listen it.

Using modern technology to create a virtual device for reading the paper recording, the scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California managed to restore the French song, sung by a woman, thus making Scott the first to ever record sounds.