• OpenBiome operates a large-scale, FDA-cleared stool-bank that pays healthy donors up to $13,000 per year for fecal microbiota transplants used to treat C. difficile infections, having already shipped ~2,000 treatments to 185 U.S. hospitals while incurring ~$5,000 in screening costs per donor.

• Natasha Vita-More and Anders Sandberg report an unpublished Alcor-funded study in which 1,200 C. elegans worms were trained, vitrified, revived, and behaviorally tested to explore cryonics feasibility.

• Channel participants reviewed the Hayflick limit and cellular senescence, noting that disabling the pRB and p53 tumor-suppressor pathways can push mammalian cells past the normal 60–70 doubling barrier into “crisis,” with rare immortalized lines emerging; telomere shortening is only one component of this process.

• The Warburg hypothesis—cancer as a metabolic disease driven by mitochondrial dysfunction and a shift to glycolysis—was discussed alongside newer “metabolic theory of cancer” models, with the caveat that tumors can recruit stromal cells to compensate for mitochondrial loss.

• The sea slug Elysia chlorotica was highlighted as a natural example of horizontal gene transfer: it has incorporated an algal gene for chloroplast repair into its germline, enabling kleptoplasty and partial photosynthetic nutrition for up to nine months.

• A DIY microfluidics technique was shared: hydrophilic PDMS surfaces can be fabricated at home using a microwave oven and low-pressure oxygen plasma inside a sealed jar, with an instructional video provided.

• The American Chemical Society’s August 2015 Boston symposium “Retrosynthesis, Synthesis Planning, Reaction Prediction: When Will Computers Meet the Needs of the Synthetic Chemist?” was announced, with abstracts due March 13, 2015.

• TransVision 2014 talk videos were released, including Anders Sandberg’s survey of technological-singularity models and Natasha Vita-More’s presentation on “Informed Radical Life Extension, by Design.”