- Aspirational Neuroscience has launched a $100 k “Memory Decoding Challenge” for the first team to extract a non-trivial memory from a static synaptic-connectome map, plus four annual $25 k milestone prizes; the project page is https://aspirationalneuroscience.org/ and an explanatory video is at https://youtu.be/2lo6iblgit8.  
- Participants debated whether the contest could be shortcut by deliberately writing a known memory into a digital connectome and then “decoding” it, questioning the definition of a static map.  
- NewtonTrendy and nmz787 discussed practical limits of home lithography: consumer projectors introduce diffraction blur that must be corrected by edge-brightening or inverse-lithography Fourier techniques, but lasers or SLM-based systems give finer control.  
- nmz787 shared an open-hardware openSIM add-on (Nature Comms 2024, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-45567-7) that turns a standard fluorescence microscope into a structured-illumination super-resolution imager using an LCOS spatial-light-modulator and high-power LEDs.  
- fenn posted fresh photos of a recent lunar landing and noted the next attempt is scheduled for March 6, while also remarking that the planned Stellaris stellarator fusion reactor may be obsolete by the time its large-scale construction is finished.