• Oxford Nanopore’s handheld GridION nanopore sequencer was announced, promising 100 k reads for ~$900 and a full human genome in 2 h for ~$1 k, prompting skepticism about the claimed price and timeline and speculation on its impact on Halcyon Molecular and the broader sequencing market.

• An open-source, adjustable electroporator for in-vivo human muscle transfection is being designed with target specs of 200 V max, 1 A, 10–50 ms pulses, using components rated to 1.5 kV/8 A for safety margin, with ongoing refinement of high-voltage pulse circuits and component tolerances.

• 3Scan (Todd Huffman) was highlighted as an active San Francisco start-up using the Knife-Edge Scanning Microscope (KESM) to image an entire mouse brain at 0.6 µm × 0.7 µm × 1.0 µm resolution in under 100 h, aiming for full neuron-level reconstructions.

• DIY microfluidics experiments include replicating C. elegans maze-learning assays with Shrinky-Dink micro-channels (~1 mm wide) and considering high-density single-neuron patch-clamp recordings combined with the known connectome to emulate the worm, alongside open-access UMD papers on feedback-controlled microfluidic particle steering for DIY assembly.

• The New Organ prize (neworgan.org) was debated, with Aubrey de Grey launching more prizes, but concerns raised that clinical implantation and 2-year follow-up will cost millions, suggesting grants might be more effective than prizes.

• Pink Army Cooperative was described as an unfunded, presentation-focused effort led by Andrew Hessel, lacking lab space or research staff, with its promise of low-cost oncolytic-virus engineering questioned.

• A curated list of Russian life-extension resources was shared, including Science for Life Extension Foundation reports, aging-genes LiveJournal, and English translations hosted at FightAging.org, along with sequencing-cost data from genome.gov to track the continuing price drop in genomics.

• DIYbio supply-chain history was explored, illustrating how Sigma-Aldrich began with a single ATP-derivative ad in a journal and scaled to $2 B revenue, serving as a potential path for open-source reagent companies.

• Long-term distributed archiving ideas emerged, including mirroring NCBI genomes, paywalled papers, and the entire Internet Archive via fault-tolerant, replicated storage systems, with Freenet deemed “too slow.”