- The EPFL Blue Brain Project’s Neurorobotics division posted a job opening, underscoring the growing convergence between large-scale brain simulation and physical robotics research.  
- A draft neuroscience paper titled “brain.pdf” was circulated at turingbirds.com/temp/brain.pdf, illustrating the channel’s habit of sharing pre-prints for rapid peer feedback.  
- DIY-bio troubleshooting: cathalgarvey achieved GFP expression after realizing earlier blue/UV lamps had the wrong spectrum, and members sought periplasmic-extraction protocols and open-source incubator designs from Hackteria.  
- paperbot, an IRC bot that fetches pay-walled articles from LibGen and mirrors, was used to retrieve multiple chapters of “Metal Nanoparticles in Microbiology” and several Science/ACS papers, demonstrating a practical workaround to subscription barriers.  
- kanzure released “pdfparanoia,” a script that strips 230×432-pixel ad overlays from AAAS PDFs—described as “adblock for science”—with cleaned sample papers provided for verification.  
- A live demo revealed an XSS flaw in sciencemag.org’s ad network that could exfiltrate session cookies, highlighting security risks in journal paywalls.  
- Open-hardware links included a 3-D-printable adjustable-volume pipette (Instructables) and community-tested DIY incubator variants that move beyond the classic Styrofoam-box approach.  
- Participants argued that if journals embed ads, the revenue should at least offset the ~$30 per-article download fee, framing it as a fairness issue in scientific publishing economics.  
- eleitl announced plans to reboot the historic cypherpunks mailing list, positioning it as a forthcoming resource for crypto-privacy advocates.