- The Tricorder Project’s Mark-2 open-hardware sensor platform was critiqued and extended: participants proposed adding O₂ and toxic-gas sensors, a software-defined-radio front-end, a true spectrometer, multimeter capability, and ultrasonic time-domain reflectometry for non-contact density mapping, while debating whether a $500 BOM is realistic.  
- A technical debate explored whether human speech can be reconstructed from a handful of amplitude-modulated sine waves with phase ignored, and how phase information affects spatial sound localization; links to PBS cochlear-implant demos and Nyquist/Audacity plugins were shared for quick experimentation.  
- Halcyon Molecular—once viewed as a survivor in graphene nanopore sequencing—is liquidating, its equipment being scavenged and website stripped, prompting reflection on the durability of DNA-sequencing startups.  
- Amazon Web Services released the entire 1000 Genomes Project (~200 TB) as open public data on S3 and FTP mirrors, with participants urging scaling to “billions and trillions” of genomes.  
- DIY neural-modulation discussion surfaced clinical and experimental literature on 0.8–1.5 MHz transcranial focused ultrasound for non-invasive brain stimulation and tumor ablation, with cautions to test on meat before self-experimentation.  
- Ion Torrent has quietly open-sourced parts of its sequencing stack at https://github.com/iontorrent, potentially useful for academic or DIY bio-hardware projects.  
- A 2010 court case awarded molecular biologist Becky McLain $1.37 million after occupational exposure to a genetically engineered viral vector caused recurring paralysis, highlighting ongoing lab-safety gaps in industrial synthetic biology.  
- Nick Bostrom’s Atlantic interview on human-extinction risk was criticized for dwelling on abstract probabilities rather than actionable engineering counter-measures; Anders Sandberg’s shift from technical road-mapping (e.g., the 2007 Whole-Brain Emulation Roadmap) to FHI-style risk philosophy was cited as symptomatic of the same trend.