• A Tor-based PDF-leak service (jtdzkgzfpvhryjv6.onion) was noted as a potential tool for liberating paywalled papers, though it had only been spammed on Reddit and not yet adopted by the channel.  
• paperbot, the channel’s automated literature-fetcher, was upgraded with the pdfparanoia library to strip publisher watermarks and now supports additional AIP journals (JAP, APL).  
• Gene-synthesis pricing was benchmarked: DNA20 quoted >$1.00 per base-pair in 2011, and Ginkgo BioWorks’ 2012 provider survey was cited as a reference for current commercial rates.  
• A DIY eddy-current thickness-measurement project was proposed to characterize ultrapure 25 µm molybdenum foils using a low-cost Chinese sensor (TG2100FN); practical obstacles (sub-minimum thickness) led to a workaround of cold sputter-coating a gold under-layer to create a measurable “conductive coating.”  
• Open-access grievances targeted the Royal Society of Chemistry for high per-student page charges and NAR/Oxford Journals for paywalling pre-1996 content, with PubMed Central highlighted as a free alternative.  
• PrismScanner.org, an open-source 3-D scanner project, was shared without pricing details, inviting community feedback.  
• A 1998 Sensors Magazine article describing a DIY eddy-current sensor circuit was surfaced as a resource for custom thickness measurements on very thin conductive foils.  
• A Google Scholar query technique was demonstrated for locating academic PDFs by excluding AMA journal sites, illustrating a scraping strategy for open literature.