- Craig Rouskey (Sudo Room/BioCurious) announced a new DIY bacteriophage project and is soliciting sources for inexpensive agar plates, illustrating the continued growth of grassroots synthetic-biology experimentation.  
- Participants repeatedly referenced the 2013 Lancet “Horus study,” which used CT scans of ancient mummies to reveal widespread atherosclerosis 4,000 years ago, challenging the notion that modern lifestyle alone causes arterial disease.  
- A debate on enzyme logistics concluded that many restriction enzymes remain active for at least a week at room temperature and up to a year when refrigerated, with discussion centering on whether thermostable variants or simple cold storage is more practical for distributed labs.  
- Max More’s newly released anthology “The Transhumanist Reader” was criticized as an $80 collection of mostly reprinted essays, prompting questions about its added value compared to freely available transhumanist literature.  
- A 2010 IRC log excerpt showed Bitcoin trading at $0.0038, highlighting the channel’s long-standing engagement with emerging technology economics.  
- SphericalMouse_ outlined plans to tear down an early Illumina Genome Analyzer at BioCurious, noting its largely off-the-shelf hardware (syringe pumps, valves, laser, camera, PC control) and the group’s intent to extract firmware and PC-side software for open-source re-implementation.  
- The FDA approved and implanted the first U.S. OsteoFab Patient-Specific Cranial Device—3-D-printed PEKK skull implants that are radiolucent and osteoconductive—with an estimated 300–500 U.S. patients per month potentially needing such replacements.  
- kanzure noted that the WARC web-archiving format is now an ISO standard and is natively supported by the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, improving long-term preservation of open-source science resources.