- **Living fiber-optic brain interfaces**: Anselm Levskaya’s concept of engineering protists to lay down micro-scale fiber-optic tracts for optogenetic neural control was highlighted as a long-term but independently re-invented idea within the channel.

- **Open-science venture roundup**: 2012 “Startup Science” unconference transcripts catalogued new services—Cureus (post-publication peer review), PeerJ (low-cost OA journal), Mendeley (reference manager), Science Exchange & Assay Depot (outsourced lab work), Kaggle (data-science contests), and SolveBio (genomic data API)—with real-time pricing for mass-spec on Science Exchange ($100–$700 per sample) and debate on micro-grant funding models.

- **DIYbio vs. professional gatekeeping**: Transcriptic’s restriction of gene-synthesis orders to “credentialed labs” sparked criticism that such policies undermine open, community biology; the FBI/DIYbio meeting transcripts (posted at diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/fbi-diybio-2012/) were shared to document ongoing relations with law enforcement.

- **Microfluidics design deep-dive**: Participants compared 1 mm vs 5 mm valve spacing, off-chip standardization strategies, and the resolution limits of MakerBot vs Objet 3-D printers for micro-scale features; key resources circulated included the 5-page primer “The Origin and Future of Microfluidics” and the diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/microfluidics/ archive.

- **Community resources and events**: DIYbio postcards vol. 2 (http://diybio.org/postcards/vol2/), Brain Connectivity Toolbox (https://sites.google.com/site/functionalconnectivitytoolbox/), Gada Prize (http://gadaprize.org/), and open-source NanoEngineer CAD (https://github.com/kanzure/nanoengineer) were shared; the next Startup Science meetup (startupscience.eventbrite) was announced for the following day.