- A speculative enzymatic experiment was proposed: using Terminal Deoxynucleotidyl Transferase (TDT) to add a naked phosphate (PO₄H₂) to the 3′ end of a short oligo (e.g., 5′-AAA-3′-PO₄H₂) and then employing an exonuclease to create “dirty-ended” adenine residues, potentially enabling a new DNA-labeling or synthesis strategy.  
- The community weighed open-source and offline mind-mapping tools; Freeplane, org-mode, draw.io, Leo, and Freemind were discussed, with emphasis on the lack of support for non-hierarchical or multiply-parented nodes and the trade-off between semantic rigor and free-form sketching.  
- Links to Robin Hanson’s “Age of Em” were shared, including an in-depth review (aleph.se) and an announcement of a Second Life discussion event (turingchurch.com), highlighting ongoing interest in whole-brain emulation economics and futures.  
- Coverage of the newly announced “Human Genome Project–write” (HGP-write) appeared, noting the $100 M kick-start led by Jef Boeke, George Church, and Andrew Hessel; participants suggested launching an independent open-source analogue.  
- A set of fresh arXiv preprints was circulated:  
  – “Atomic scale nanoelectronics for quantum neuromorphic devices” (1606.01884) comparing candidate materials for ultra-low-power neuromorphic hardware.  
  – “The Dorsal Striatum and the Dynamics of the Consensus Connectomes in the Frontal Lobe” (1605.01441) presenting evidence that frontal-lobe fiber tracts dynamically originate from striatal connections during development.  
  – “Physical limits to magnetogenetics” (1604.01359) arguing that ferritin-based cellular magnetoreception is physically implausible.  
  – “A possible link between pyriproxyfen and microcephaly” (1604.03834) proposing the juvenile-hormone-analog insecticide (used in Brazilian drinking water) as an alternative environmental cause of microcephaly via retinoid-pathway interference.