- **Protein-only induced pluripotency**: A new paper by Ding et al. shows mouse cells can be reprogrammed to stem cells using only purified proteins plus a chemical additive, eliminating the need for genetic material.  
- **Portable MRI wish-list**: Participants lament the absence of compact MRI devices for transgenic-mouse brain imaging and discuss the physical limits—room-temperature superconductors or multi-megawatt power—needed to make low-field or portable MRI feasible.  
- **Multiphoton GFP imaging**: Cited Theer et al. (2003) for achieving 1 mm depth in rat cortex with multiphoton fluorescence microscopy using GFP, highlighting a non-MRI route to deep brain imaging.  
- **Laser cavitation machining**: Detailed calculations show picosecond-laser-induced cavitation in water can generate shockwaves up to ~10 000 MPa, approaching water-jet cutting pressures and enabling micro-scale cell lysis or metal processing via ultrasonic cavitation jets.  
- **Ex-vivo organ perfusion**: Linked to a Toronto General Hospital video/news item on lungs kept alive and breathing outside the body, plus earlier “heart-in-a-jar” demonstrations, underscoring progress toward fully artificial organ support systems.  
- **Artificial oxygen carriers**: Discussion of hemoglobin mimetics and direct-blood oxygenation devices as alternatives to mechanical ventilation, with potential use in CO-poisoned environments.  
- **Swine-flu biohacking angle**: Brief exchange on whether the 2009 H1N1 outbreak warrants DIY concern, paralleled by a request for shikimic-acid biosynthetic pathways to enable home-brew Tamiflu production.  
- **Open hardware & software notes**: Mentions of “actualhardware.com” (a nascent open-hardware effort), Mozilla XUL tree-widget documentation woes, and the GraphScholar project for visualizing scientific literature.