• The NYC DIYbio group’s proposed rule that wet-lab work must be preceded by a bioscience degree or certified training is being criticized as a betrayal of the amateur, open-access ethos that originally defined the DIYbio movement.  

• Participants are exploring click-wrap copyleft contracts—modeled on the BioBricks legal FAQ and Janet Hope’s talk—as a way to enforce open-source sharing of biological parts that fall outside traditional copyright protection.  

• A recent paper on “Reverse DNA translocation through a solid-state nanopore by magnetic tweezers” is being discussed alongside graphene nanogaps and STM/AFM approaches as potential ultra-cheap third-generation DNA-sequencing technologies.  

• The Free Beer (freebeer.org) and OpenCola recipes are cited as case studies in whether recipes can be copyrighted and whether Creative Commons licenses are sufficient for “open-source” claims in hardware or biology.  

• NASA/JPL’s LEMUR robot, Festo’s air-manta ray, and an autonomous camera-assembly demo are highlighted as advanced manipulation systems whose techniques could be adapted for automated bio-laboratory workflows.  

• Despite iGEM having previously rejected them, NYC DIYbio is drafting formal articles of incorporation and is reportedly preparing an iGEM team by recruiting student members and an academic supervisor to satisfy eligibility rules.  

• The community is troubleshooting how to access Open CASCADE 5.2 documentation on Linux, noting that the 90 MB .HLP help file (compressed to 11 MB) depends on proprietary RoboHelp functions in RoboEx32.dll, complicating extraction on non-Windows systems.