- A PLOS Biology paper on “Open Labware” was shared, describing how researchers are 3-D printing laboratory equipment; the article links to an Instructable that shows how to build a simple venturi vacuum pump from pipettes when no 3-D-printed pump is available.  
- A new “correlated metal” film developed at Penn State was highlighted as a drop-in replacement for indium-tin-oxide (ITO) in displays, smart windows, touchscreens, and solar cells, promising >90 % transparency, high conductivity, and lower cost than the volatile ITO market.  
- Tardigrades (“water bears”) were noted to enter a glass-like amorphous solid state when desiccated, a finding reported in new research that may inform cryobiology and anhydrobiosis strategies.  
- Xerox PARC’s historical FTP server was explored via Archive.org, yielding the source file tube.c and a narrative about a full computer system (hardware, OS, compilers, microcode) that was entirely simulated and debugged before any physical hardware existed; the OS was written in Pascal and cross-checked at every level.  
- The Oberon operating system—written in the Pascal-family language Oberon—was cited as another example of a complete OS implemented in a high-level language, prompting discussion about the feasibility of non-C systems software.