- **LOV-domain optogenetics**: The LOV domain (Light-Oxygen-Voltage) is a small, conserved protein module that binds flavin mononucleotide (FMN) and undergoes a light-triggered conformational change, forming a covalent bond with a cysteine residue; this mechanism is being exploited in synthetic biology for light-controlled signaling pathways and cellular responses.

- **Xeno-nucleic acid data storage**: A 2020 paper on “double-headed nucleotides” describes a new class of XNA whose unnatural base geometry can still be recognized and copied by polymerases, expanding the toolkit for orthogonal information storage and synthetic genetics.

- **Micro-gravity microbiology**: Vibrio natriegens, already the fastest-growing bacterium on Earth, showed a 60-fold increase in cell density after 24 h in zero-g, suggesting that micro-gravity extends the exponential growth phase and could be leveraged for ultra-high-throughput bioproduction or directed-evolution experiments.

- **DIY continuous-evolution device**: A proposed low-cost “evolution circuit” uses rolls of plastic produce-bag tubing; a thermal printer selectively melts barriers to create nutrient-filled microfluidic channels where microbes evolve while migrating along the roll, exchanging DNA at programmed junctions and producing optical readouts via activity-sensitive dyes for later AI training.

- **Chemputation milestone**: Lee Cronin’s group released a pre-print (arXiv:2408.09171) and demo video claiming the first full “proof of chemputation,” an automated system that plans, executes, and verifies multi-step chemical syntheses entirely under software control.

- **Ultra-fast polymerase from Vibrio natriegens**: A biorxiv pre-print (2023.05.26.541695) reports a V. natriegens polymerase that elongates DNA at ~4,000 bp s⁻¹—four times faster than E. coli’s—raising the possibility of engineering even faster replication by further genome minimization, although authors argue that elongation speed is no longer the growth-limiting factor.