- A participant with free cloud credits from the Global Accelerator Network asked whether AWS/GCE compute time could profitably mine any cryptocurrency besides Bitcoin; Monero was suggested as the most CPU-friendly option, and the new FPGA EC2 instances were noted as potentially useful but expensive.  
- Discussion of the Knife-Edge Scanning Microscope (KESM) included links to a mouse-brain vasculature video and the 3scan company site; sample preparation uses 5 mm diamond knives and is still largely manual, prompting curiosity about automation.  
- A debate on animal-model choice questioned why mouse brains dominate neuroscience given that crows have ~10× the encephalization of mice and birds/shrews show higher brain-to-body ratios; bees’ recently reported tool-use training experiment was cited as evidence of avian/insect cognitive potential.  
- The U.S. Department of Defense launched code.mil, a public-comment repository for an open-source license tailored to DoD software; participants speculated whether open hardware might follow.  
- SpaceX announced a privately crewed Dragon 2 circumlunar mission on Falcon Heavy targeted for late 2018, with channel members noting the published $90 M launch price.  
- BioCurious, a prominent biohacker space, revealed it will relocate to a 2× larger facility at 3060 Coronado Dr., Santa Clara, listing new board members including Joe Bamberg, Maria Chavez, and Eri Gentry.  
- A Forbes tweet claiming “cosmic superclusters don’t actually exist” was mocked and mirrored on Pastebin as “fuck2forbes,” illustrating skepticism toward mainstream science journalism.  
- Links to supplementary materials for a Science paper (Schwander et al. 2016) were located via both the journal site and ResearchGate, demonstrating community resource-sharing practices.