- A newly discovered single-celled organism, Warnowia, has an “eye” assembled from domesticated microbial symbionts—offering a striking natural example of endosymbiotic organelle evolution.  
- Elon Musk’s Future of Life Institute announced $1.5 M to Nick Bostrom and $111 k to Anna Salamon for AI-safety research, highlighting growing philanthropic focus on existential-risk mitigation.  
- A speculative “cell-by-cell brain replacement” protocol was floated: engineered stem cells would interface with, copy, and then apoptotically replace neurons while streaming fluorescent data through a multi-strand optical fiber for gradual whole-brain uploading.  
- Discussion countered that action-potential monitoring alone cannot extract memory; instead, patch-clamp interrogation of every neuron for methylated DNA, transcriptome, and ultrastructure was proposed as the necessary information source.  
- A Science paper showed cortical folding scales universally with cortical surface area × √thickness, not neuron count—explaining lissencephaly and why manatee brains remain smooth despite large size.  
- Counterpoint from fenn: folding is actually driven by the Trnp1 protein via reaction-diffusion dynamics, with white-matter tracts following rather than dictating the pattern.  
- The channel debated applying microbial nootropics to the biology of sleep as an experimental angle for cognitive enhancement.  
- Smithsonian article on engineering skin microbiomes to silence human odors that attract mosquitoes was shared as a near-term bio-hack for disease-vector control.  
- Links circulated: “Vingean Reflection” PDF on formal self-improving agent reasoning, origami-inspired printable robots (popupCAD.org), and a Cell paper on cellular reprogramming mechanisms.