- Shapeoko CNC routers were criticized for using aluminum ways and plastic wheels that wear quickly, leading to loss of accuracy; participants urged moving away from extruded-aluminum frame designs and pointed to a YouTube demo of proper gear-hobbing on a mini-mill as a better approach.  
- Artificial-uterus research discussion emphasized selecting embryos that tolerate ex-utero development rather than forcing hardware to meet current embryonic requirements, with warnings that nutrient mismatches could cause undetected brain damage.  
- A Cell paper on “SOX17 Is a Critical Specifier of Human Primordial Germ Cell Fate” was shared as relevant background for germ-line engineering and artificial-reproduction work.  
- New Ed Boyden lab papers were highlighted, covering LED/fiber-optic arrays for multi-site brain illumination, high-density silicon microelectrodes for scalable neural recording, Cre-lox intersectional transgenic mouse lines, optogenetic activation of intracellular A2A receptors, and a direct-to-drive neural data-acquisition system that bypasses USB bottlenecks.  
- Sonogenetics (ultrasound-based non-invasive neuronal activation in C. elegans) was introduced via a Nature Communications paper, expanding the optogenetics toolkit.  
- CRISPR-Cpf1 was announced as a single-RNA-guided endonuclease with a 5-nt staggered cut and T-rich PAM, offering an alternative to Cas9 for human-cell genome editing.  
- Community advice for learning machining ranged from taking night-school or community-college courses to simply visiting university ME machine shops and talking to staff; Purdue’s teaching shop was cited as an example of well-equipped facilities.  
- A Reddit thread on Library Genesis/Sci-Hub mirrors and a call for open-source transhumanist project opportunities were circulated as resources for accessing papers and coordinating research.