- Spider-silk reinforced with graphene or carbon nanotubes yields a “bionic” fiber whose toughness reaches 1.6 kJ g⁻¹, Young’s modulus 47.8 GPa, and fracture strength 5.4 GPa—an order-of-magnitude leap over natural silk (arXiv:1504.06751).  
- A declassified NSA technology-transfer catalog was circulated; participants observed that acoustic key-logging patents are notably absent from the list of licensable inventions.  
- Bram Cohen’s “reverse Pynchon gate” construction (arXiv:1503.06115) was discussed as a cryptographic primitive that could underpin routed clearing networks (e.g., Lightning/Amiko-Pay), offering a block-size-neutral path to Bitcoin scalability while preserving full-node decentralization.  
- The finalized Springer–Nature merger, now employing ~13 000 people, is expected to shape future open-access policies given the combined intellectual-property and author base.  
- The “Aspirin for Everyone” project on Hackaday.io was highlighted as an open-source chemistry initiative that synthesizes acetyl-salicylic acid from common precursors, illustrating grassroots pharmaceutical autonomy.  
- A Springer study of the Chernobyl exclusion zone reports markedly slower leaf-litter decomposition and thicker organic layers under chronic low-dose radiation, pointing to long-term ecological consequences.  
- A newly identified deep-ocean archaeon is reported in Science as the closest living relative of complex eukaryotic cells, potentially closing the prokaryote–eukaryote evolutionary gap; full genome and cellular analysis are available at http://diyhpl.us/~nmz787/pdf/Complex_archaea_that_bridge_the_gap_between_prokaryotes_and_eukaryotes.pdf.