- A BBC article claiming that “difficult-to-read fonts improve learning” triggered discussion on cognitive load, dyslexia, and eye-tracking; participants cited 1980 and 2008 papers on eye-fixation and saccades as possible explanatory mechanisms.  
- Zyvex publicly announced a DARPA-funded breakthrough in atomic-precision patterning: replacing individual hydrogen atoms on a silicon surface with silicon at 50 atoms/second using SiH gas, marking a step toward programmable matter.  
- The Gada Prize—originally created by the Foresight Institute to spur open-source self-replicating 3-D printers—was formally transferred to Humanity+, with kanzure drafting the public announcement and updating gadaprize.org.  
- Boulder hackerspace progress was reported, including acquisition of a new 3-D printer and successful open-source hardware talks at Burning Man that attracted Makerbot founders and large audiences.  
- Sales of the Qi-Hardware Ben NanoNote pocket computer reached 1,000 units, underscoring grassroots adoption of open-source hardware.  
- Development of SKDB, a package-manager-style system for hardware projects, stalled for lack of an active RepRap/Makerbot owner to demo the full toolchain; a white-paper fallback was proposed.  
- fenn released mat18-all.zip, a downloadable database of mechanical properties for common metal alloys intended for open-source engineering projects.  
- Participants criticized Humanity+ for weak messaging and excessive PR, proposing attention-grabbing stunts ranging from radical DIY brain implants to tongue-in-cheek “blue-skinned genetic engineering.”