- A UK government report challenges the common claim that thorium reactors are inherently safer or more efficient than conventional nuclear plants, prompting debate over the precautionary principle versus Max More’s proactionary manifesto and the DIYH+ declaration.  
- Anders Sandberg’s 1999 paper on the thermodynamics of planet-scale supercomputers resurfaced, alongside his recent assertion that “public intellectual” work and stress-management techniques now constitute his transhumanist contribution—drawing criticism that he has “settled.”  
- Participants explored DIY liquid-handling robotics for cell-culture automation, referencing the 88proof.com build log and weighing the economics of cloning a Tecan versus reverse-engineering proprietary controllers.  
- A deep dive into epigenetics covered DNA methylation on CpG sites, the spontaneous deamination of 5-methyl-cytosine to thymine, and the unresolved question of whether mammalian cells possess active DNA demethylases—key for improving targeted iPSC reprogramming beyond stochastic bulk transfection.  
- Papernaut, a new open-source web application for tracking online discussion of scientific papers, was announced with repositories at https://github.com/jasonm/papernaut-engine and https://github.com/jasonm/papernaut-frontend.  
- The channel’s paperbot was debugged live to retrieve pay-walled articles and store raw PDFs on diyhpl.us, illustrating ongoing efforts to automate open-access literature sharing.  
- Critiques of FDA regulatory capture contrasted rigid Phase I/II/III pipelines with adaptive trial designs, while noting that large pharmaceutical firms increasingly outsource R&D to contract organizations like Quintiles, evolving into marketing and IP-holding entities.