• Gwern’s long-form essay on nicotine (https://gwern.net/nicotine) was circulated for discussion; participants debated whether evolutionary “Algernon’s-argument” objections still apply in an environment of caloric abundance.  
• Personal anecdotes: one user reported that nicotine patches cause impatience and irritability, while another agreed with Gwern that non-overdose nicotine is not directly toxic to tissues.  
• A Nature Communications paper (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12916-w) on expanding the “second genetic code” with ribozymes prompted speculation that ribosomes might one day polymerize non-biological monomers—e.g., linking adamantane or Meerwein-ester derivatives into diamondoid threads.  
• Conversation turned to the surprising ease of legally purchasing hazardous items: professionally manufactured grenade launchers (marketed as flare guns), flamethrowers, botulinum toxin, and americium-containing smoke detectors were cited as examples.  
• A late-night design brainstorm proposed a nanoscale data-storage polymer consisting of two mirrored polystyrene-like chains whose phenyl rings could be cross-linked in programmable orientations, encoding bits by “inward vs outward” ring pairs while still allowing the ribbon to be spooled.  
• jrayhawk pointed to an existing patent (https://patents.justia.com/patent/11339423) describing a polymer-based storage medium that already exploits well-developed packing techniques, suggesting prior art for the concept.