- 23andMe pricing dynamics: participants noted the company’s genotyping kit once cost $99 (or $99 plus a one-year subscription) and briefly dropped to $49 on Cyber Monday 2012, while the regular price had risen to $299; kanzure explained that the kits are sold at a loss and revenue is recouped through subscription fees, and mentioned an unadvertised $999 whole-exome-sequencing option.  
- Open-hardware PCB micro-milling: abetusk demonstrated 20-mil-pitch isolation routing on FR4 copper using a Zen Toolworks CNC kit upgraded with Pololu A4988 drivers, GRBL on an Arduino, and a high-precision spindle, achieving 8–10 mil trace widths and 10–12 mil clearances for roughly $500–700 total cost.  
- DIY nootropic chemistry discussion: jenga asked about “Chemically Induced Long-Term Potentiation,” linking to the CILTEP stack thread on Reddit’s r/Nootropics as a starting point for experimental cognitive-enhancement protocols.  
- Singaporean DNA-oligo synthesis paper: nmz787 shared a 2011 Biomedical Engineering paper (Wang & Trau) describing a microfluidic method for rapid, low-cost oligonucleotide synthesis and detection, funded by Singapore’s Ministry of Defence.  
- Cloudflare as DDoS mitigation service: kanzure and brownies debated Cloudflare’s reliability, noting that customers often sign up reactively during attacks and may stop paying afterward, while the company’s blog framed recent Israel–Gaza cyber skirmishes as evidence that “cease-fires don’t end cyber-wars.”