- Polymerase cycling assembly (PCA) was discussed as a method to stitch 40-nt oligos into full-length genes or plasmids, with a citation to the 1995 Nature paper “Single-step assembly of a gene and entire plasmid from large numbers of oligodeoxyribonucleotides.”  
- A playful proposal circulated to create a “rubber-band ball of DNA” by ligating fragments from many organisms and physically mailing it between DIYbio practitioners as a transhumanist artifact.  
- Scotch tape was shown to emit nanosecond X-ray bursts when peeled in a modest vacuum (~10⁻³ torr), with the 2008 Nature paper “Correlation between nanosecond X-ray flashes and stick-slip friction in peeling tape” linked and discussed as a potential low-cost x-ray source.  
- PMMA (plexiglass) was identified as a suitable photoresist for LIGA x-ray lithography, suggesting a path to micro-fabricate high-aspect-ratio metal structures without a synchrotron if combined with the tape-based x-ray source.  
- ImageJ was praised as an open-source alternative to the GIMP for quantitative video analysis; a physics-lab demo tracked a puck on an air-hockey table by thresholding monochrome frames and exporting centroid coordinates for motion analysis.  
- OpenCV and ImageMagick were recommended for real-time computer-vision projects, including an automated Nerf turret that could target faces or moving objects by calculating trajectories from webcam data.  
- A link to the Soviet-era “Water Integrator” analog computer (1940s) was shared as historical inspiration for fluidic computing and unconventional hardware.  
- Discussion dismissed “holographic brain theory” as pseudoscience and examined a chemical implementation of an artificial neuron (Kiss et al., 2008) that performs computation via reaction–diffusion chemistry rather than electronics.  
- A New Scientist article warning of a 90-second solar “space storm” capable of continent-wide power-grid failure was circulated, highlighting existential risks and the need for resilient infrastructure.