- A Mars colonization prize was announced by the Journal of Cosmology (http://journalofcosmology.com/Mars139.html), framed as a competitive incentive for off-world settlement research.  
- David Brin’s 80-page graphic novel “Tinkerers” (PDF: http://itdnhr.com/static/tinkerersPDF.pdf) was circulated; it laments the U.S. shift toward service/entertainment economies while itself being a media product.  
- DARPA’s director circulated a policy memo titled “A Framework for Revitalizing American Manufacturing” (PDF: http://bit.ly/9dmRhf), outlining federal strategies to reboot domestic production capacity.  
- Paul Allen’s Allen Institute awarded Ed Boyden an “Allen Distinguished Investigator” grant to develop the second generation of optogenetic neural-control tools (press release: http://mcgovern.mit.edu/newsroom/press-release-archive/406-ed-boyden-named-allen-distinguished-investigator).  
- Participants debated the stagnation of electroactive polymer “artificial muscles,” noting NASA’s long-static EAP site (http://eap.jpl.nasa.gov/) and the decade-old commercial site of Artificial Muscle Inc. (http://www.artificialmuscle.com) that still lacks viable products.  
- Humanity+ @ Caltech event announced (press release: http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/irc/Press%20Release%20-%20Humanity+%20@%20Caltech.pdf); kanzure is scheduled to speak.  
- Discussion of merging the WTA-Talk and Extropy-Chat mailing lists to reduce fragmentation of transhumanist discourse, with criticism that Humanity+ leadership rarely posts to WTA-Talk.  
- Norton Safe Web flagged file-sharing site filebin.ca for malware, prompting caution about distributing DIY biology or hardware files through that channel.