- The KATRIN neutrino-mass experiment was highlighted: a 200-ton MAC-E spectrometer chain that can resolve 13 keV electrons to <1 eV precision to measure the electron-antineutrino mass via tritium beta-decay.  
- A Hacker News comment was quoted lamenting that “biotech software is a gimmick used to hike up prices,” with consultancies charging hundreds of thousands for barely functional niche tools.  
- Discussion of ultra-high-throughput PCR: 1536-well plates are sealed with laser-welded caps and then processed by the old “alternating water-bath” method instead of modern thermocyclers.  
- An optical-mouse camera hack was shared (bidouille.org/hack/mousecam and bitbucket.org/brianmcgee/mousecam) as a low-cost imaging platform.  
- A brief debate on Go coding style questioned whether renaming an error variable from “error” to “err” in Docker’s source (commit ea7b8ea) was worth the churn or introduced shadowing issues.