- Brmlab hackerspace is evaluating the purchase of a £500 scanning-electron microscope from the UK, weighing freight costs and on-site dismantling requirements; they already possess vacuum hardware and a Neophot 30 optical microscope.  
- A $7 eBay “Saleae Logic” clone plus sigrok/pulseview on Linux is recommended for low-speed serial sniffing; adding a MAX2323 handles true RS-232 levels.  
- “Bactofection” gene-therapy strategy: attenuated bacteria (Listeria, Salmonella, E. coli, Shigella, Yersinia) deliver naked plasmid DNA into mammalian cells, escaping phagosomes to reach the nucleus; cited papers show functional transgene expression and immunization.  
- Parasite-neurochemistry links: Toxoplasma gondii increases dopamine metabolism; trematode Euhaplorchis californiensis raises hypothalamic dopamine and lowers hippocampal serotonin in killifish—suggesting parasite-mediated CLOCK disruption or memory modulation.  
- Structural memory correlates: larger CA3 subfield and thicker hippocampal posterior segments predict superior associative recall; white-matter microstructure and RASGRF1 promoter variants also correlate with human memory performance.  
- Pharmacological cognitive enhancers discussed: PDE4 inhibitor artichoke extract, rolipram (improves LTP and reverses sleep-dep memory deficits), ampakine CX717 (restores primate performance under sleep loss), and encenicline (α7-nAChR agonist).  
- Estrogen rapidly modulates hippocampal spine density up to 30 % across the rat estrous cycle and enhances associative memory formation in ovariectomized females.  
- Open-source HDL resources: Free Range Factory hosts a curated index of open-source VHDL/Verilog cores for hardware projects.