- A new Nature paper (“A swapped genetic code prevents viral infections and gene transfer”) was highlighted as a follow-up to the 2016 effort to recode E. coli to use only 57 codons, demonstrating a practical route to engineered biological isolation from viruses and horizontal gene transfer.  
- Participants voiced concern that follow-up work might involve gain-of-function experiments—deliberately recoding viruses to test infectivity—raising both biosafety and conspiracy-theory risks.  
- DIY biology links circulated, including an amateur microscopy Facebook group video and the ongoing diyhpluswiki transcript archive (e.g., Austin Bitcoin Developers Socratic Seminar 38).  
- A concise “brain scale” for AI-image generation was proposed: from manual photography → basic Midjourney prompting → advanced prompt-crafting with LoRA and custom diffusion models → cybernetic workflow that offloads prompt engineering to ChatGPT plus Midjourney documentation.  
- The channel continues to operate across multiple bridges (IRC ↔ Discord ↔ Matrix), with old-time contributors reappearing after more than a decade’s absence, underscoring the long continuity of the open-source transhumanist discussion space.