- A newly published PNAS paper describes an RNA polymerase ribozyme evolved in vitro that achieves >10,000-fold amplification of short RNA templates in a protein-free, RNA-only PCR analogue and can synthesize functional structured RNAs such as aptamers and other ribozymes, suggesting a potential synthetic “RNA life” system.  
- Participants reviewed methylation biochemistry, identifying vitamin B12, methyl-folate, choline, TMG/betaine, and SAMe as key alternative methyl-group donors that modulate hormone levels and fatty-acid oxidation, with a comparative review linked at http://www.raysahelian.com/methyl.html.  
- nmz787 demonstrated a working slice engine for microfluidic devices implemented as a BRL-CAD Python wrapper, shared an animated GIF of the slicing process, and outlined plans to use NIRT to generate rasters and ultimately G-code for fabrication.  
- kanzure surveyed distributed multi-GPU deep-learning strategies, citing the Elastic Averaging SGD paper (arXiv:1412.6651) and the Mila “platoon” codebase, noting that current practice averages model weights across GPUs after independent training batches.  
- CaptHindsight highlighted two LaserGen papers on improved nucleotide chemistry (Litosh NAR 2011 and Gardner 2012) and observed that sustained funding for such work is more readily available in China, which was compared to “Texas with better funding.”  
- The Foresight Institute’s “AI for Scientific Progress” workshop site (ai2016.foresight.org) and a $100 open-hardware muon-detector project featured in Symmetry magazine were circulated as upcoming resources and DIY physics tools.  
- Journal access issues prompted sharing of open mirrors (e.g., Benson 2015 on DNA origami at hogberglab.net) and routine use of Sci-Hub and r/Scholar for pay-walled ACS Nano Letters and Nature papers.  
- ybit announced the Journal of Open Source Software (JOSS) at http://joss.theoj.org as a new venue for peer-reviewed open-source scientific software.