- A CRISPR-edited baby claimed to be “immune to AIDS” is expected within six months, reigniting debate over germline editing and its classification as a potential WMD (links to Futurism and MIT Technology Review articles).  
- Channel participants criticized the mainstream view that “super-smart babies” are impossible because intelligence is “too polygenic,” arguing instead that discrete molecular targets—synapse regulators, receptor densities, dopamine-pathway tweaks—could yield cognitive gains without needing to edit hundreds of genes.  
- A specific human SNP (WWC1 rs17070145) was cited as associating with a ~19 % boost in working-memory capacity, illustrating a candidate single-gene intervention (see diyhpl.us/wiki/genetic-modifications/).  
- Skeptics countered that “working memory” and “intelligence” lack rigorous, SI-unit-grade definitions, that measurement itself is philosophically suspect, and that pleiotropic trade-offs may already cap human cognitive enhancement.  
- Practical counter-argument: laboratory assays routinely achieve 1 000× improvements in receptor binding affinity, suggesting biology has not optimized these parameters and that engineered receptors (e.g., for dopamine) could be deployed safely.  
- Jeff Hawkins’ HBP keynote on neocortical “location-based” representations was shared as a concrete model for how memory and learning might be structured, moving the discussion from mysticism to mechanistic theory.  
- Historical context: Austen Heinz’s “designer baby” startup (Cambrian Genomics era) and Craig Venter’s PR dynamics were recalled as early commercial attempts at consumer genomics and embryo selection.  
- Veritas Genetics’ whole-genome sequencing pricing page was noted to bury its “buy it now” link, highlighting ongoing friction between consumer access and corporate marketing in personal genomics.