- Ginkgo Bioworks raised a $45 M Series B to scale its “Bioworks1” platform, highlighting engineered microbes that mass-produce synthetic rose fragrance oil as a response to a projected global shortage of natural rose oil.  
- A long technical thread explored an open-source, micro-electrode–based DNA-synthesis concept: inkjet-print 50–100-base oligos on a silanized slide, anchor one end with a photocleavable linker, then use UV-laser cleaving and electrostatic droplet steering to assemble longer genes in parallel without traditional column synthesizers.  
- Participants debated whether standard phosphoramidite chemistry plus DNA ligase can ligate a surface-immobilized “foundation” oligo to a free-floating partner, noting that current literature and patents obscure the exact coupling protocols.  
- Links shared for background: photocleavable linker reagents (GeneLink), a 2015 Neural Computation paper on neural nets (retrieved via Sci-Hub), and a cryobiology primer on cellular stresses at low temperature and hydration.  
- Additional resources posted: a six-part blog series on designing a soft-core CPU in VHDL, a Hacker News discussion on sub-second CRISPR guide-RNA searches across a 3 Gb genome, and Reddit threads on Dyson-sphere feasibility and “rational” world-building.  
- DIY synthesis notes were consolidated on the channel’s public wiki (diyhpl.us/wiki/dna/synthesis/notes/) to document reagent costs, process flows, and open hardware ideas.