- Marshall Brain’s short story “Manna” resurfaced on the extropy-chat list; participants noted that most commenters had apparently never actually read it.  
- Cryonics logistics were briefly discussed: Alcor’s funding model (patient’s assets placed in a perpetual trust) and the practical/religious objections families raise when deciding “who pulls the plug.”  
- Open-source lab-automation architecture was debated: Agilent BenchBot-style robotic arms versus low-cost modular conveyors (e.g., QDraw microplate conveyors) for moving 96-well plates between instruments, with emphasis on minimizing wasted motion through better path-planning.  
- Contamination control for automated liquid-handling was clarified: molecular-biology workflows rely on disposable tips; fixed, washable tips are used only in chemistry applications and must be autoclaved between runs.  
- A new SynBio Project podcast on DIYbio was announced (http://www.synbioproject.org/news/project/new_podcast_launched_on_diybio/).  
- Daniel Dennett’s 1960s mechanical robotic dog was rediscovered and linked (http://cyberneticzoo.com/?p=5358).  
- International travel with sensitive research data prompted a practical discussion: full-disk encryption, likelihood of TSA hard-drive imaging (judged “practically 0 %” for ordinary travelers), and shipping drives or using encrypted cloud storage as mitigation.  
- Aesthetic appreciation of industrial automation emerged—participants shared YouTube playlists of ambient music set to high-precision machinery (e.g., Audi R8 stress-test video) and joked about composing soundtracks for lab robots.