- A PLOS ONE paper demonstrated the first cross-species brain-to-brain interface: human SSVEP signals triggered 350 kHz focused-ultrasound bursts to stimulate a rat’s motor cortex, eliciting tail movements with 94 % accuracy and ≈1.6 s latency.  
- OpenBiotech.com now offers open-source molecular biology reagents, including the pOpenTaq Taq polymerase expression vector and 5× Open MasterMix, prompting debate over whether any DIYbio labs have actually produced their own Taq polymerase in-house.  
- Lucigen’s “E. cloni” chemically competent E. coli cells were identified as a reliable free-sample source for non-institutional labs, with participants noting that simple plate streaks suffice for routine plasmid work and full chemical-competency protocols are only needed for high-efficiency cloning.  
- The DIYbio mailing-list leadership faced criticism for imposing top-down “codes of ethics,” proposing moratoria on biohacking projects, and accepting Woodrow Wilson–funded policy research led by Jason Bobe.  
- A Nature Genetics paper on seven loci influencing mean telomere length and disease associations was retrieved via the channel’s paperbot, which was also debugged in real time for failures with JSTOR, Springer, and AIP URLs caused by EZ-proxy redirects and Zotero metadata extraction limits.  
- A Stockholm seminar on whole-brain emulation by Anders Sandberg was announced for the following Monday (agenda.albanova.se).