# Key Insights from Transhumanist IRC Discussion

• Researchers debated alternatives to traditional scientific papers, arguing that current formats constrain research and aren't machine-readable, suggesting that software orchestrating lab equipment APIs might better document scientific processes than static text documents.

• The conversation explored long-term data preservation methods, comparing laser-printed paper (2.2 gigabits per US$), CD-ROMs (56 gigabits per US$), and glass as archival media, with glass identified as particularly promising due to its stability, uniformity at atomic levels, and resistance to degradation.

• Participants discussed challenges in nanoparticle delivery across the blood-brain barrier, noting current academic papers show only 0.5-1.5% delivery efficacy, with surface chemistry being critical and alternative routes like nasal insufflation and P-glycoprotein 1 inhibitors like Piperine mentioned as potential solutions.

• The group explored neural plasticity and sensory substitution techniques, including feeding audio into the visual cortex (V1) of mice to enable "hearing" through visual pathways, alongside discussions of electrical stimulation and optogenetics for neural control.

• Yale's NEURON simulation environment was recommended as a sophisticated alternative to randomly wired neural networks for modeling neurons with complex anatomical and biophysical properties, with participants noting the brain's strongly hierarchical structure due to cell growth patterns.

• The "movage problem" described by Kevin Kelly was highlighted as a fundamental challenge for digital preservation—information requires constant migration to new formats and media to survive, creating a form of "digital Darwinism" where information must attract attention or effectively die.