- A <$100 open-source PCR thermocycler is being designed around a spinning carousel for air mixing, piezo-actuated doors, and 3-D-printed HDPE/polycarbonate parts; an alternative “two-water-bath + aquarium heater” concept is proposed to achieve the same function more simply.

- NanoEngineer-1, the legacy molecular-design CAD, is being revived: an Ubuntu-fixes branch now launches the GUI, but demo files still crash; a 1.2 GB Ubuntu 7.04 chroot is maintained as a stop-gap while incremental upgrades to modern distros are planned.

- Ultrasound neuromodulation experiments at 8 MHz are underway, highlighting the need for open-source Talairach/Reichert coordinate-mapping software and stereotactic targeting tools; a Korean study using focused ultrasound to stimulate the rat thalamus and modulate glutamate/GABA via microdialysis is cited as a model for Parkinson’s or coma-therapy trials.

- An open-source brain-connectivity mapping project is proposed: a machine-readable adjacency matrix listing source, destination, connection type (inhibitory/excitatory), cell type, density, and citations to support precise stereotactic targeting for future stimulation experiments.

- Hindawi’s ISRN open-access brand is offering authors a $1 000 payment per accepted review article—effectively a discount on the usual $1 000–$5 000 article-processing charge—prompting debate on the economics of paid academic writing.

- The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services awarded Texas A&M $176 M over five years to build one of three national centers capable of supplying 25 % of the nation’s pandemic-flu vaccine within four months of an outbreak, with full infrastructure expected by 2014–2015.

- Links shared include: cathalgarvey’s OpenPyCR repository (clean-up of OpenPCR), a CHOMP peptide-building tutorial, Todd Huffman’s 2009 Ignite talk on high-speed brain slicing, and a Manchester microbe-map “hacking” repo.

- Concepts floated for future human augmentation include subdermal e-ink microbead tattoos, full-body e-ink skin for always-on displays, and bioluminescent variants, alongside skepticism toward “binaural beats” and “brainwave entrainment” due to lack of rigorous evidence.