- A new seed-stage biotech fund was announced by Data Collective and SynBioBeta founder John Cumbers, aiming to back early synthetic-biology companies.  
- ForeverLabs launched a stem-cell banking service that accepts Bitcoin payments, marketed as a personal longevity intervention.  
- Recent longevity papers highlighted: dietary restriction reprograms lipid-metabolism methylation patterns (Genome Biology 2017), and chemical screening identified ATM kinase inhibition as a route to alleviate cellular senescence (Nature Chemical Biology 2017).  
- Harold Katcher’s “Heterochronic Plasma Exchange” concept—parabiosis-style blood exchange to reset aging—was discussed, along with the newly formed Turritopsis Corp. intended to pursue this approach.  
- Open-longevity initiatives and funding vehicles were catalogued: Methuselah Fund, Apollo VC, Unity Biotechnology ($116 M raise for senolytics), Oisin Biotechnologies, and the Russian Open Longevity project.  
- DNA Script presented an enzymatic, template-free DNA synthesis method using terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase (TdT) in aqueous media, positioned as an alternative to phosphoramidite chemistry; patent WO2015159023A1 details the protected-nucleotide cycle.  
- SynBioBeta UK 2017 takeaways: > $1 B invested in synthetic-biology companies in 2016, enzymatic DNA synthesis is a hot but secretive area, and vendors such as Labcyte and Opentrons featured prominently.  
- Microbiome aging research: transplanting gut microbes from young African turquoise killifish into old fish extended lifespan, paralleling earlier parabiosis studies in rats.  
- DIYbio community call for 20× gene fragments (130–1800 bp) for free synthesis offer from Mega; discussion noted the size limits (~300 amino acids) for protein coding.  
- Unpaywall.org Chrome extension was shared as a tool for automatically locating legally uploaded PDFs of paywalled research papers.