- A Colombian gene-therapy trial was mislabeled “DIY” by Technology Review; participants clarified that outsourcing to a $250 k CRO is legitimate but dilutes the meaning of do-it-yourself, sparking debate on where the term’s boundary lies.

- Sri Kosuri’s lab has exited oligo synthesis and now treats protein-engineering projects as “supportive but otherwise done,” illustrating a growing academic aversion to hands-on engineering in favor of specification and simulation.

- Roman Jerala’s 2013 paper demonstrated the first rationally engineered single-chain polypeptide tetrahedron assembled from coiled-coil segments, archived at diyhpl.us, and was hailed as a long-sought milestone in de-novo protein design.

- Adam Marblestone’s Harvard PhD thesis systematically analyzes the physical limits to recording every neuron in a mouse brain at millisecond resolution, evaluates electrical, optical, magnetic-resonance, and molecular modalities, and proposes violating key assumptions to open new design spaces; full thesis available via Harvard DASH.

- A “molecular ticker-tape” recording scheme was discussed in which DNA-polymerase misincorporation rates, modulated by neuronal cation concentrations, could store neural activity at high density; theoretical temporal-resolution limits were derived in a companion paper by Josh Glaser.

- Embedded microscale neural devices could communicate via infrared light or ultrasound instead of RF, contingent on major improvements in micro-electronics power efficiency.

- Liz Parrish’s Reddit AMA, summarized by Life Magazine, was circulated as a current reference on self-experimentation narratives in gene therapy.

- A CrowdSupply campaign for the Ultimate Hacking Keyboard prompted cost modeling: 500–1,000 units appear to be the break-even volume for fixed design costs versus economies of scale, and DIY fabrication would likely exceed the $200 retail price once machining, testing, and QA are included.