- Transcriptic’s automated growth-curve assay service was defended against Hacker-News price complaints by noting it is essentially a single-product offering, not a full wet-lab replacement.  
- Channel members patched the paperbot’s scihub.py XML parser in real time to restore pay-walled paper retrieval, fixing variable-name and error-handling bugs.  
- nmz787 circulated focused-ion-beam (FIB) fabrication literature showing how to embed micro/nano-electrodes in AFM cantilevers and grow neural-interface microtubes via FIB-CVD, plus NIST’s 24/7 FIB access rates.  
- Experiment.com (formerly Microryza) was highlighted as a viable crowdfunding platform for science, exemplified by a UCSF RCT on PCOS and paleo-diet interventions seeking backers.  
- DIYbio culture was critiqued for prioritizing flashy demos over deliverables; participants debated whether new institutions are needed to support truly non-institutional biology, citing Ginkgo Bioworks’ low-capital YC entry as a counter-example.  
- Skepticism persisted over the “Glowing Plant” Kickstarter, with faint long-exposure images and absent data fueling doubts about luciferin or fluorescent-protein claims.  
- Bay-Area vs. East-Coast DIYbio spaces were compared: Biocurious (Sunnyvale) struggles with low membership and internal conflict, Genspace (NYC) runs steady classes, and BossLab (Boston) remains low-activity near Davis Square.  
- Participants argued that embedding career-level mathematicians in synthetic-biology teams could cut experimental failure rates through better modeling, contrasting math’s low-infrastructure prestige economy with biotech’s lab dependence.  
- Shared resources included the DIYbio Google Group, Eleanor Saitta & Smári McCarthy’s 29c3 talk “Long Live the Protocoletariat,” a Chinese Instructable for a low-cost AFM, and its YouTube demo.  
- Ethical tension over life-science patents surfaced when one member vowed to boycott patented organisms like GloFish yet faced personal conflict about joining a patent-holding employer.