• A reversible, UV-addressable DNA “tape drive” was proposed that uses the light-induced dimerization and monomerization of thymine bases (320 nm to write, longer wavelength to erase) as a bistable optical bit, with Smith 1963 (photobiology.info/PDF/Smith1963.pdf) cited as foundational evidence.

• To achieve 5–10 nm write resolution on the DNA strand, participants discussed overshooting a 300 nm optical spot and then shifting the strand 10 nm at a time to overwrite the trailing 290 nm, or employing zero-mode waveguides, beam-pen waveguides, or UV-plasmon-coupled nanopores to confine excitation to tens of nanometres.

• For readout, standard DNA-sequencing methods were deemed sufficient, but optical alternatives such as engineered protein tags for reflection-based detection and zero-mode waveguides were also considered.

• fltrz raised the concern that routine mechanochemical shear—e.g., passage through a hypodermic needle or vigorous shaking—may fragment very long DNA constructs after synthesis, an under-appreciated limit on construct length.

• kanzure shared a Nature Photonics paper demonstrating a photon-driven micromotor that can steer nerve-fiber growth (nature.com/articles/nphoton.2011.287) and linked high-resolution microscopy videos of diatoms and euglena (twitter.com/drewberryIV).

• The public logs at http://gnusha.org/logs and the diyhpluswiki at http://diyhpl.us/wiki were reaffirmed as canonical archives for open-source transhumanist and biohacking discourse.