• HiveBio, a new Seattle DIY-bio lab, is launching with Microryza crowdfunding and backing from the Washington Biotechnology and Biomedical Association (washbio.org), signaling growing institutional support for community biology spaces.  
• Rob Rhinehart’s Soylent update on micronutrient bioavailability and calorie-restriction claims sparked debate over whether the product offers advantages over FDA-approved Ensure, highlighting ongoing skepticism toward meal-replacement startups.  
• Channel members compared strategies for open-source hardware documentation, weighing SKDB’s formal spec, minimalist BOM.txt files, Octopart’s commercial API v3, and the trade-offs between in-person “documentation sprints” and distributed development.  
• Defense Distributed’s DEFCAD was characterized as a “model-and-dump” repository lacking maintenance, while Thingiverse and Upverter were cited as having similar limitations; screenshots hinted at early Git-style forking for hardware files.  
• Participants floated the idea of “weaponizing” predatory journals (from the scholarlyoa.com list) by submitting legitimate research to force these outlets to host real science, framing it as a tactic to subvert paywalls.  
• Cambrian Genomics’ Anselm argued that sufficiently advanced (quantum) computers could “elucidate the logic of the cell,” advancing the vision of biology as programmable matter.  
• A Weston A. Price critique of the carnitine/TMAO/heart-disease paper claimed the rodent dosage equated to “a thousand steaks a day” and flagged sex-hormone confounds, illustrating community scrutiny of high-impact nutrition research.  
• A DVD-player-based HIV blood-test hack (reported by The Register) showcased ultra-low-cost diagnostics repurposing consumer electronics, aligning with the channel’s interest in frugal medical innovation.  
• The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence rebranded to the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI), prompting discussion on whether #hplusroadmap would see an influx of “brand refugees” and hopes that LessWrong would absorb them.