• Keith Henson presented a detailed proposal for 4 GW ground-based laser launch to GEO that could deliver space-solar electricity at 1 ¢/kWh and synthesize gasoline for $1/gal, backed by a $350 B financing plan modeled on Germany’s feed-in tariffs and a public campaign promising “dollar-a-gallon gasoline.”

• Early open-source synthetic-biology tooling was debated: xp_prg’s drag-and-drop “biobench” Flash interface for BioBrick assembly was compared to SynBioSS’s SBML export and simulation back-end, while kanzure outlined a full pipeline from BioBrick design → SBML → automated DNA ordering → Fab Lab build instructions.

• The channel’s 400 MB open biotech repository (http://heybryan.org/~bbishop/docs/ellingtonia/biotech/) was offered for curation; participants stressed adding ATP-cost, pH-impact, and inter-cell signaling data to any design tool, and kanzure volunteered a 400 GB NCBI genome mirror for wider hosting.

• Real-time embryogenesis imaging was highlighted via Sean Megason’s “digital fish” project—live-cell movies of zebrafish ear development at single-cell resolution, systematic mutant arrays, and the goal of extracting developmental pathways for biomimicry databases and optimization algorithms.

• Existential-risk mapping efforts included PeerInfinity’s “Scenarios Project” (http://cosmeng.org/publicwiki/index.php/The_Scenarios_Project) to broaden the AI-risk focus, critique of SIAI’s “coherent extrapolated volition” rhetoric, and promotion of OpenCog as a more incremental, prototype-driven path to AGI.

• Susan Blackmore’s TED talk on memes and “temes” (technological replicators) was circulated (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/susan_blackmore_on_memes_and_temes.html) as a framework for understanding cultural and technological evolution in transhumanist contexts.

• Launch-cost alternatives were compared: laser launch (Kare modular laser system), tether boost/flywheel concepts (tethers.com papers, HASTOL airship-to-orbit), partial space elevators (Ron Clark talk), and dismissal of “orbital airship” ion-drive claims as physically unrealistic.

• UtopiahGHML explored neuronal self-modification, asking whether somatic RNA-driven structural rewiring constitutes the neuron’s “computation core” and seeking a boolean/logic model of somatic integration, noting mature neurons can “reopen” their blueprint to alter function.

• A bulk materials sourcing initiative arranged small-quantity metal purchases from onlinemetals.com for DIY hardware projects, including a gingery lathe and custom copper water-blocks for high-wattage Peltier coolers.

• The agalmics manifesto (Robert Levin) was circulated as a post-scarcity economic vision; Levin’s death in a biking accident and his role as Freenode founder were noted, tying the network’s culture to open-source transhumanist and scarcity-abolition memes.