- OpenBCI’s 8-channel, 24-bit, 16 kHz EEG board (~US$500 retail) is being reverse-engineered; participants estimate BOM + assembly could drop below US$50–100 and are exploring Chinese manufacturing partners near Nanjing to clone and cost-reduce the design as well as other open hardware (EEG64, USB-sniffer OV3, Olimex EKG/EMG shields).

- A debate on EEG fidelity questioned whether the TI ADS1299 24-bit ADC is overkill; cheaper 12-bit STM32-based alternatives were proposed, with discussion centering on whether >100 Hz sampling or 24-bit resolution materially improves practical brain–computer-interface performance.

- A DIY spectrometer effort is underway: initial quotes for a custom concave diffraction grating came in at US$520 from a Nanjing supplier, but participants recommended prototyping with a US$5 DVD grating first and shared contact e-mails for lower-cost Chinese grating sources.

- Feasibility of high-frequency or RF signaling between neurons was contested; one side argued no exhaustive frequency-sweep experiments have been performed, while the other cited thermal-noise limits and evolutionary evidence against natural RF communication in biology.

- Metabolic hacking for endurance running was discussed: the idea of replacing carb-loading with continuous insulin infusion was rejected because mitochondrial respiration, not substrate availability, is the bottleneck; links to “superstarch” formulations and intestinal-permeability research were provided.

- Regulatory teardown of a failed Kickstarter ECG project highlighted that FDA/CE documentation must be created from scratch and cannot be retro-fitted; a specific 5 kV defibrillation-protection failure in the AFE1198 analog front-end (device hangs until reset) was identified as a key design challenge.

- OpenECG (gammacardiosoft.it/openecg) was introduced as a fully open-source ECG board with published schematics and Gerbers; participants are considering porting its Orcad files to KiCad to accelerate community adoption and lower barriers to entry.

- Piezoelectric micro-pumps from MicroJet and CurieJet (<US$50 on Alibaba) were shared as ready-made components for lab-on-chip or open-source drug-delivery prototypes, with spec sheets and sourcing links provided.

- The LPC4370 ARM Cortex-M4F microcontroller is being evaluated as the core for a next-generation open-source oscilloscope or bio-signal acquisition board; current dev boards are viewed as unfriendly, prompting brainstorming for an “Arduino-ized” breakout or daughter-card to spur community firmware development.