- The White House PCAST issued an urgent biological-defense report calling for a $2 billion emergency fund and warning that CRISPR-based threats are hard to contain; Ellen Jorgensen countered that gene-delivery hurdles remain the primary barrier to misuse.  
- A Nature Communications paper (ncomms13363) debunks “young-blood” hype: single-exchange experiments show old blood rapidly damages muscle, liver and brain, while young blood gives only modest gains, suggesting removal of aged factors may be more effective than transfusion.  
- Participants argued that macroscopic von Neumann replicators are now technically feasible—robotics and materials processing could achieve sub-week doubling times—but lament the neglect of biological self-replication approaches.  
- The Open-V crowdfunding campaign was highlighted for a fully open-source 32-bit RISC-V microcontroller, with links to its CrowdSupply page and GitHub repository (onchipuis).  
- Ultra-high-density data-storage schemes were proposed: engineered bacteria could synthesize protein-based photographic film or microfiche, or be fed 10⁵ 100-mer oligos and subjected to FACS-based bulk selection to assemble megabase genomes.  
- Debate on orbital-ring versus momentum-exchange tethers: docl questioned Paul Birch’s 180 kT minimum-mass model, while others cited 250 kg cable estimates and argued electrodynamic tethers offer lower-mass, incremental paths to orbit.  
- Dani Eder’s “3-stage tether” concept—tower + rotating tether + rocket spin-up—was discussed as a way to eliminate onboard propulsion, alongside nested rotating tethers and orbital-ring skyhooks to keep material-strength demands low.