- A speculative “immune-system organoid drone” was proposed—autonomous micro-robots that continuously sample environmental pathogens, pre-manufacture antibodies, and report back—framed as a humane alternative to using children as disease sentinels.  
- The first-in-human CRISPR trial was announced (Nature News, 2016), with discussion of competing U.S. efforts (Carl June’s CAR-T group at UPenn) and remaining safety concerns such as off-target effects and CAS9’s permissive binding.  
- Key CRISPR ecosystem players were catalogued: Editas Medicine, Caribou Biosciences, CRISPRx, plus academic leaders Doudna, Qi, Charpentier, Elledge, Church, and computational specialist J. Listgarten.  
- Ex-Rad, a chlorobenzylsulfone radioprotectant claimed to enhance DNA-repair signaling rather than scavenge free radicals, was highlighted as a potential post-exposure countermeasure to radiation injury.  
- Technical deep-dive on super-critical CO₂ extraction covered practical pressure thresholds (~72 000 psi), phase-diagram interpretation, and advantages over sub-critical liquids for motor-oil re-refining and critical-point drying for electron microscopy.  
- Submarine-detection physics explored the Debye effect (magnetic/electric fields from ion motion in a submarine’s wake) and gravimetric methods, including historical 1950-60s military relative gravimeters and modern gravity gradiometers.  
- Open-source scientific-literature mining tool ContentMine (contentmine.org) was introduced for automatically extracting structured data from scientific PDFs.  
- DIY high-pressure experimentation was discussed using stock diesel-engine cylinders (~3 000 psi) and grocery-store dry ice (~US$5) for low-cost cooling in small-scale vacuum or pressure work.