• A new connectome-harmonic decomposition study shows that LSD reorganizes the dynamical repertoire of human brain activity, offering a window into how psychedelics alter large-scale neural dynamics (Scientific Reports paper shared by kanzure).

• Second-generation rabies-virus vectors now enable retrograde delivery of Cre or Flp to projection neurons with certified non-toxicity and broader tropism than CAV or AAV2-retro, opening up safer long-term circuit-tracing experiments (Nature Neuroscience paper from Ian Wickersham’s lab).

• A robotic, multidimensional directed-evolution platform was used to evolve improved fluorescent voltage reporters, demonstrating how automation can accelerate the development of optical neurophysiology tools (synthneuro.org publication).

• The channel debated whether DNA-origami or protein-sheet masks could replace conventional photomasks in semiconductor lithography, with kanzure speculating that self-assembled biological nanostructures might drastically cut the $100 M cost per stepper.

• emeraldgreen proposed engineering a “neural firmware lobe”—a genetically specified brain region in parrots or mice that could be chemically switched to rapidly imprint stereotyped patterns (e.g., English phrases) via optogenetics or electrical stimulation, creating factory-programmable living memory.

• nmz787 countered that programming a fresh brain may require microglia-like cells to traverse axons and set synaptic weights, citing live-imaging data of amoeboid microglia rapidly moving across neuronal bundles (Cell paper link via Tommy Vierbuchen tweet).

• NIH grant bias toward older investigators was highlighted as a systemic funding inefficiency, with kanzure noting that the money flow appears “broken” (Hacker News discussion link).

• New cryptographic tools discussed include non-interactive zero-knowledge “zaps” and constant-size accountable ring signatures without random oracles (eprint.iacr.org preprints).

• A year-long fMRI study tracked six-year-olds learning to read, showing how the visual word form area (VWFA) is gradually recruited from regions initially involved in tool and face recognition (PLOS Biology paper).