- A group is reverse-engineering CRT electron guns to build a home scanning-electron microscope, noting that custom high-voltage coils and a redesigned power supply are the main remaining hurdles.  
- The Parker Lab at UC Irvine has published an open-source “build-your-own two-photon microscope” guide and supporting papers, now mirrored at adl.serveftp.org/papers/parkerlab-UCI/.  
- Fenn released a Graphviz/Neato cladogram of fabrication methods (taxonomy.yaml/svg) intended for integration into SKDB, the open hardware design database.  
- Kanzure is extending SymPy’s physics.units module to perform dimensional analysis for SKDB hardware equations and is using inspect.getargspec() to auto-discover unit-conversion routines.  
- A deep dive into maskless photolithographic DNA synthesis covered photolabile NPPOC protecting groups, phosphoramidite preparation from nucleosides, and low-cost reagent sourcing, with side discussion on synthesizing exotic backbones such as glycol nucleic acid (GNA).  
- Participants debated the practicality of using DIY thin-layer chromatography—glass slides coated with silica-gel from desiccant packets—to separate DNA bases during oligonucleotide synthesis, concluding that washing plates between each base addition would still demand large reagent volumes.  
- Two archives of nucleoside-synthesis protocols (adesign-libraryEM.zip and adesign-edited.zip) were shared via FTP; the latter is explicitly labeled “not a tarbomb” and contains detailed protecting-group strategies.  
- A suggestion was made to engineer bacteria to biosynthesize a DEA Schedule II precursor, hinting at a microbial route to restricted reagents for nucleotide chemistry.  
- Kanzure has taken over administration of Joseph Jackson’s nascent “Journal of Abundance” site (AbundanceStudies.org) and plans to repost the nucleoside-synthesis documents to the DIYbio community for broader collaboration.