- OpenWorm released a new video and wiki page demonstrating five independently-controlled muscle compartments modeled with open-source neuroscience tools on opensourcebrain.org.  
- Participants debated scraping strategies for academic paywalls: ParahSailin argued that pure-HTML parsing suffices for ScienceDirect, while kanzure considered adopting JavaScript-capable scrapers (PhantomJS, webkitgtk+, headless Gecko) to future-proof against paywalls that may require JS execution.  
- kanzure outlined plans for a ground-up rewrite of the paperbot/Zotero stack in portable JavaScript so the same code can run in browsers, servers, and Zotero without Python-JS glue.  
- Sigma-Aldrich’s refusal to ship to a UPS store prompted discussion of alternative addresses, including having a local hackerspace vouch for the recipient as a “lab” or routing orders through Jordan Miller’s new Rice University lab.  
- SynBio axlr8r, a 90-day synthetic-biology accelerator run by SOS Ventures in Cork, Ireland, was highlighted: it offers $30 k and bench space to 10–20 teams aiming for rapid proof-of-concept and company formation.  
- Cynthia Kenyon’s free public talk on aging biology in San Francisco (promo code “VANNEVAR”) was noted; she is credited with early discovery of Hox genes’ role in lifespan regulation.  
- kanzure shared a military project’s work converting extreme NURBS surfaces into .g format for BRL-CAD, providing new test cases for multi-patch intersection algorithms.  
- A Python standard-library patch was proposed to let subprocess.Popen accept a dict of file descriptors; ParahSailin filed bug 18544 and debated upstream acceptance in #python.  
- Google Cast developer preview was identified as an HDMI-overlay dongle that could inject arbitrary graphics into video streams.  
- heath considered repurposing a $99 commercial pizza-warmer cabinet as a DIY bio-incubator for temperature-controlled experiments.