• A DIY gene-cloning pipeline for 10 kb spider-silk genes (MaSp1/2 from L. hesperus) was outlined: single-primer PCR, agarose-gel size selection, ligation into an antibiotic-marked plasmid, and cost control by requesting existing plasmids from paper authors instead of commercial synthesis, with unknown regions sequenced for ~$100.

• An open-source, 1 µm-accuracy laser-etching gantry for microfluidic chips is being co-designed; the current bill of materials uses 12 mm hardened rails, 3/8-40 acme screws, NEMA steppers, and a granite base, with a PiratePad shopping list (http://piratepad.net/Ji4MXCLtUX) targeting <$250 per axis and kinematic mounting to avoid over-constraint.

• A flexible literature-scraping stack is under active development: kanzure released an updated Python script (http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/irc/ezproxy.py) that parses ScienceDirect metadata and is migrating from MongoDB to SQLite, while delinquentme experiments with threaded search to bypass Google rate-limits and populate a public diyhpluswiki.

• Participants are inventorying liquidated Halcyon Molecular equipment, prioritizing high-precision linear stages that could be repurposed into an electrohydrodynamic jet printer, and planning logistics for a cross-country truck rental to secure biology, chemistry, and machine-shop gear.

• Side debates included the ethics of “biology as technology,” a half-serious proposal for legless, brain-minimized goat bioreactors, the cognitive risks of chronic tDCS, and the cultural framing of Elon Musk’s SpaceX funding as a transhumanist-scale ROI case study.