• SoundHelix, an open-source Java music generator, was praised for producing high-quality jazz, piano, trance and pop pieces from simple XML or random seeds, but participants wanted a GUI or YAML/Protocol Buffers front-end instead of raw XML editing.

• The Allen Institute for Brain Science received an additional $300 M from Paul Allen, bringing its total funding to $500 M; the new money targets large-scale DSI (Diffusion Spectrum Imaging) tractography and optogenetics tool-building, with Ed Boyden praising the vertically-integrated approach.

• IBM developerWorks post “How to build your own Watson Jr. in your basement” was linked as a DIY guide to replicating IBM’s Jeopardy-playing Watson on commodity hardware, while the Blue Brain Project (Henry Markram’s cortical-column simulation effort) was mentioned with a 2005 Google Tech Talk recommended for background.

• Participants debated whether “consciousness” is a scientifically useful concept, with one camp arguing that without a precise, non-circular definition it is impossible to study, while others countered that operational definitions (awake vs. asleep, subjective world-model, qualia) are sufficient starting points for neuroscience research.

• Backyard Brains’ new PLOS ONE paper describing the “SpikerBox” was shared; the device is a low-cost, open-source analog front-end for recording neural spikes, marketed as a “bio-amplifier” to schools and DIY neuroscientists.

• A microfluidic “DNA-synthesizer” concept was sketched: a single long PDMS capillary (~4 cm²) could store ~50 000 individually addressable 5 µm droplets (e.g., all 4096 6-mer DNA sequences) and dispense them first-in-first-out for on-demand oligo assembly, with a nicking-enzyme “library-replenishment” scheme proposed to avoid depletion of rare 6- or 8-mer droplets during repeated synthesis cycles.

• Web-based GUIs for scientific instruments were explored: nmz787 plans to use Pyjamas/pyjs to wrap Python/NumPy/SciPy back-ends for an open spectrometer, leveraging JavaScript graphing libraries (three.js, raphael.js) for interactive plotting while keeping heavy computation in Python.

• The Senate passage of the Brown-Merkley bipartisan crowdfunding bill was noted as a potential new funding route for open biotech hardware startups.

• DIY-bio aspirations included engineering metabolic pathways to synthesize drugs in common plants (e.g., THC-producing dandelions) as a technological end-run around drug prohibition.

• A VR developer reported that US Marshals raided his Buffalo, NY lab two years ago, confiscating chemistry precursors and forcing a felony plea for “unlawfully importing a listed drug precursor”; the incident was framed as an example of how anti-meth enforcement is deterring legitimate chemists and hardware hackers.