- Backyard Brains showcased low-cost, open neuro-experimentation by driving a squid’s chromatophores with Cypress Hill and making a detached cockroach leg twitch to the Beastie Boys, illustrating accessible neural-music interfaces.  
- A deep technical thread examined reversible cryopreservation: replacing cellular water with polymerizable molecules, using carbon-nanotube “nanoknives” for vitreous slicing, and the ~7-minute limit for axoplasmic transport over 2 mm axons as a bottleneck for cryoprotectant delivery.  
- Utah arrays were dismissed as low-resolution and rejection-prone for human BCI, while optogenetics was praised for lab use but still faces immune and technical hurdles; curated neuro-implant papers and purchasing links were shared at http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/neuro/implants/.  
- DIY gene-therapy safety was dissected: retroviral vectors, “crippled” HSV-1 as neuron-friendly episomal delivery, and the unsolved problem of immune rejection of both vector and transgene products; a community paper collection is maintained at http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/gene-therapy/.  
- Glowing-organism projects (GFP cats, GloFish) dominated discussion, highlighting microinjection, plasmid construction, and regulatory barriers as key hurdles, while the “glowing cat” meme was identified as the canonical beginner question.  
- Educational resources debated included standard texts (Molecular Biology of the Gene, Molecular Cell Biology, Molecular Cloning), the OpenWetWare “Synthetic Biology Primer,” MIT lecture videos, and the DIYbio FAQ at diyhpl.us/wiki/diybio.  
- Post-9/11 anthrax screening now imposes multi-week delays on all physical mail to the U.S. Capitol, effectively eliminating timely grassroots lobbying unless documents are hand-delivered; participants are investigating the private contractors behind this screening.