• A Frontiers in Human Neuroscience paper demonstrated a real-time transcranial-Doppler-ultrasound BCI that lets users type on an on-screen keyboard, adding to the growing list of non-invasive brain-computer interfaces.

• Practical allergy self-experiments reported that 500 mg magnesium-citrate capsules plus true-HEPA air filtration measurably reduced hay-fever symptoms, with the caveat that magnesium overdose causes diarrhea.

• The community argued that meaningful FDA reform must be paired with USPTO patent reform because the two regulatory regimes are interlocked; the DEKA iBOT wheelchair was cited as a case where prescription and training requirements now block non-medical roboticists.

• Open-source wet-lab resources were shared: a RepRap metal-deposition print-head, new home-CMOS wet-etch recipes on diyhpl.us, and a Nature Methods paper on “bone-marrow-on-a-chip” that replicates the hematopoietic niche in vitro.

• A deep technical debate on cryptocurrency mining concluded that ASIC-friendly algorithms (e.g., SHA-2) push hardware toward thermodynamic efficiency limits and raise the cost of 51 % attacks, whereas ASIC-resistant algorithms risk covert ASIC monopolies; Andrew Poelstra’s ASIC-FAQ.pdf was repeatedly referenced as the definitive analysis.

• Participants explored exotic proof-of-work ideas such as algorithms deliberately vulnerable to viruses to enforce hardware diversity, and used nuclear vs. solar energy as an analogy for centralization risks in mining.

• A 1985 letter from Richard Feynman to Stephen Wolfram (published on Letters of Note) was circulated, in which Feynman bluntly tells Wolfram he “hates people” and calls him an idiot, illustrating their famously tense relationship.

• The Feynman Lectures on Physics (volumes 1–3 PDF) were recommended as the go-to resource for learning mechanics, electricity, and optics, while stenography tool Plover was suggested to reduce RSI for heavy typists.

• Low-field, long-integration-time NMR was proposed as a cheap alternative to conventional high-field systems, highlighting trade-offs among magnet strength, RF sensitivity, and acquisition time.

• Stewart Brand’s warning that the internet could become a “Legacy System from Hell” that distorts human history and cognition was invoked during a discussion on how instant search erodes long-term memory.