- A sociologist writing an MA thesis on transhumanism joined the channel to gather source material, prompting discussion about the community being “studied” by anthropologists.  
- D-Shape, a large-scale robotic “stone printer” that solidifies CAD designs into rock-like structures, was introduced as a cousin to rapid-prototyping/RepRap technologies.  
- kanzure posted the SpikerBox manual and a PLOS ONE paper on the toughest known biological material—silk from the giant riverine orb spider—together with a related YouTube video.  
- wrldpc2 asked for help locating the European “n51” (formerly node32) repository of modular open-hardware designs for shelters, leaflet guns, etc.; kanzure identified it as n51.  
- Utopiah shared two Santa Fe Institute working papers on patent economics and linked Andy Clark’s Vimeo lecture “Natural-born Cyborgs? Reflections on Bodies, Minds and Human Enhancement.”  
- kanzure proposed scraping Google Patents to build patent-dependency trees or other visualizations, noting the current AJAX-only API is unsuitable for bulk data mining.  
- Discussion of the Emotiv EPOC EEG headset centered on the open-source Emokit project (GitHub: daeken/Emokit); participants clarified that the 2.4 GHz link is proprietary, not Bluetooth or ZigBee, and that raw EEG access via USB is already working.  
- memorex asked whether viral vectors (retrovirus, adenovirus, lentivirus) could be used to replace DNA in older animals; kanzure pointed to existing retroviral and lentiviral gene-therapy literature.  
- industromatic analyzed OpenSCAD’s licensing (old single-developer style) and noted that its sub-libraries are GPL-compatible zlib/MIT, suggesting a clean fork or kanzure’s “lolcad” alternative.  
- JayDugger announced the winners of the OpenKinect contest and linked the libfreenect Git repository; kanzure later highlighted a 27C3 “Cybernetics for the Masses” talk promising DIY implants and electromagnetic sensory extension.