- MakerBot’s open-source “conveyor” print-farm dispatcher (https://github.com/makerbot/conveyor) and the MendelMax printer whose entire CAD is generated by FreeCAD Python scripts (https://github.com/maxbots/MendelMax) were showcased as early examples of code-driven, parametric hardware design.  
- NanoEngineer-1, the molecular CAD package, is effectively locked to Windows 7 SP1 because later service packs break bundled Python DLLs; participants concluded that “programmers, not Python 3, will save NanoEngineer,” while its maintainer plans to resurrect the official site rather than release a static archive.  
- A low-cost DIY spectrometry proposal was floated: using red and green LEDs operated as photodiodes for narrow-band light sensing, with myspectral.com offered as an additional open spectrometry resource.  
- A transient Facebook privacy bug exposed private messages from 2009 for several prominent bio-hackers (Joseph Jackson, Andrew Hessel, Eri Gentry, Eliezer Yudkowsky), creating an accidental data trove.  
- Discussion of iGEM’s policy on DIYbio teams revealed confusion over whether independent groups are still barred if universities provide lab space, prompted by a Wired synthetic-biology article.  
- Long-term Piracetam use was debated with dosage ranges from 800 mg to 20 g daily, examine.com cited for data, and warnings about withdrawal symptoms circulated from r/nootropics.  
- A Nature news piece on custom TALEN-based gene editing in zebrafish was shared as evidence of rapidly advancing targeted genome-modification tools.  
- Innovocracy, a Cornell-affiliated crowdfunding platform with only two live projects at the time, was introduced as a new funding avenue for open biotech projects.  
- A Science paper on re-engineering carbon fixation in C4 plants sparked skepticism about altering leaf anatomy, drawing parallels to earlier nitrogen-fixing maize proposals.