- A new Cre-dependent transgenic mouse line (“Floxopatch”) enables all-optical electrophysiology by co-expressing the blue-shifted channelrhodopsin CheRiff and the near-infrared voltage indicator QuasAr2, allowing cell-type-specific optical perturbation and readout of single-neuron electrical activity in acute brain slices and in vivo.  
- Azobenzene-based photoswitches are highlighted as the most versatile class for optical control of peptides and proteins, offering wavelength-tunable, reversible conformational changes that can modulate DNA binding, ion-channel gating, insulin secretion, and neuronal firing with sub-millisecond precision.  
- CRISPR/Cas9 combined with in utero electroporation and tissue-clearing methods (e.g., uDISCO) now permits high-throughput, single-cell-resolution mapping and fluorescent tagging of endogenous proteins throughout intact mammalian brains, overcoming previous limitations in post-mitotic neurons.  
- “Network cloning using DNA barcodes” proposes a theoretical framework to copy synaptic connectivity from one neural network to another by encoding connections as DNA barcode pairs and enforcing a one-marker-one-cell (OMOC) rule, achieving convergence in a power-law number of steps relative to network size.  
- Engineered prokaryotic sodium channels (BacNav) can convert non-excitable human fibroblasts into electrically active “E-Fibs” that propagate action potentials and rescue conduction slowing in cardiac fibrosis models, providing a gene-therapy route to restore tissue excitability without large mammalian VGSC overexpression.  
- Photoacoustic microscopy (PAM) is showcased as a hybrid imaging modality that achieves label-free, high-resolution visualization of microvasculature through the intact mouse skull, complementing optogenetic and voltage-imaging approaches.  
- DeepMind’s WaveNet generative model for raw audio synthesis is noted as a milestone in autoregressive neural audio generation, while GPU-based image recognition systems are reported to surpass human accuracy on standard benchmarks.  
- Debate on autonomous-vehicle sensing strategies contrasts NVIDIA’s vision-only approach with industry calls to incorporate LiDAR, framed by a tongue-in-cheek remark about “arming” cars with lasers.