• A Nature Molecular Psychiatry paper (sci-hub.cc/10.1038/mp.2012.184) identifies FNBP1L as a highly polygenic locus linked to childhood intelligence; because the gene is constitutively expressed, participants argue it could be a viable target for adult gene-therapy and have updated the diyhpl.us “genetic-modifications” wiki accordingly.

• A proposed end-to-end experimental pipeline for discovering memory-enhancing nootropics was sketched: high-throughput drug/microbe screening guided by fMRI visual-memory metrics, followed by primate validation using map-learning and maze-navigation tasks to quantify durable visual-memory persistence.

• Participants debated the feasibility of “photographic memory” techniques—especially a claimed military method using brief light flashes to create retinal after-images—while citing a NASA study (ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20000011599.pdf) that debunked “photoreading” claims of 25 000 wpm; a new adaptive blur-feedback game was proposed to train eidetic recall by rewarding correct digit recall with reduced image blur.

• Cognitive-effort and “willpower” were analyzed: evidence suggests mental fatigue is task-specific rather than global, and plans were floated to sequence the genome of an individual who reportedly never experiences mental fatigue to identify protective alleles or pathways.

• DNA data-storage progress was highlighted, including an “epigenetics-inspired DNA-based data storage system,” a Church/Kosuri paper benchmarking error-correction enzymes with next-generation sequencing, and a claim of generating 10⁴³ unique DNA barcodes in a single tube; scalability bottlenecks in oligonucleotide synthesis were contrasted between solid-phase (SPOS), liquid-phase (LPOS), and emerging organic-solvent nanofiltration methods.