- EPFL’s Blue Brain Project is scaling its neocortical-column simulator from 30 k-neuron hexagonal mosaics to a full 3-D rat brain of tens of millions of neurons, using rodent connectomics data to wire mesocircuits through white-matter tracts and is recruiting post-docs for the effort.  
- A 1955 paper (PMC1361254) shows that low-intensity ultrasound accelerates bacterial growth, offering a non-chemical route to boost culture yields, while dichloroacetate (DCA) is being explored off-label to force cancer cells into oxidative phosphorylation and trigger apoptosis, with informal canine “trials” cited.  
- Participants debated ex-vivo organ maintenance: machine perfusion with blood or synthetic oxygen carriers (PolyHeme, Hemopure, DARPA’s cord-blood “blood pharming”) can keep organs viable, but room-temperature, serum-free protocols remain elusive; discarded human organs are hard to source, so pig or rabbit organs are pragmatic starting points.  
- A speculative immune-rejuvenation platform proposes decellularized thymus scaffolds reseeded with patient cells to generate autologous white blood cells, with SCID mice or rabbits as hosts to avoid graft-versus-host issues.  
- DIYbio safety and cost hacks were shared: methylene blue as a cheap gel stain, household bleach plus activated carbon to destroy ethidium-bromide waste, and a cookie exploit that raises IEEE paper download limits from 18 to 100 per day.  
- Sci-Hub/LibGen integration was improved in the channel’s paperbot IRC bot, achieving ~50 % retrieval success; kanzure demonstrated a reflected-XSS flaw in Sci-Hub’s PHP code, underscoring skepticism about PHP security culture.  
- Emscripten and Fabrice Bellard’s JSLinux (with an open-source de-obfuscated fork) were showcased as proofs that entire C codebases and even an x86 Linux userland can run inside the browser via JavaScript.  
- MakerBot’s $400 M sale to Stratasys (up to $600 M with earn-outs) was analyzed as a ~100× return for early angel Adrian Bowyer, while East-Bay mesh-networking efforts by sudo room aim to deploy a free community wireless network.