• Reverse-engineered Epson inkjet printers (< $100) are being adopted in DIY bio labs as open-source pico-droplet generators, undercutting commercial systems priced at $20 k–$100 k.  
• Surplus closed-loop piezo-actuated nanopositioning stages (PI, Cedrat) can be sourced on eBay and driven with LinuxCNC; a 2016 IEEE survey paper and vendor manuals were circulated as guides.  
• Participants criticized SpringerNature’s €4 B IPO and Nature’s refusal to retract the 2017 CRISPR off-target mutations paper, linking to PubPeer critiques and three biorxiv rebuttals.  
• A “gene-therapy spring” is underway after a 20-year winter; Eric Topol’s tweet thread highlighted investment targets (Sangamo, Voyager, CRISPR, Editas) and emerging Down-syndrome gene interventions.  
• The Odin’s $159 “DIY Human CRISPR kit” and Josiah Zayner’s self-experimentation talk were cited as evidence that sub-$10 k gene editing is already on the market, with delivery efficiency the main bottleneck.  
• The Supreme Court ruled that synthetic cDNA remains patent-eligible while natural sequences do not, prompting speculation on blanket patents covering any non-natural sequence.  
• Two 2017 Nature papers on optogenetics were shared: one achieving single-cell-resolution control and another introducing engineered anion-conducting channelrhodopsins for behavioral modulation.  
• A cognitive-AI reading list included Lake et al.’s “Building machines that learn and think like people” (BBS 2017) and the Cambridge BBS article “Understand the cogs to understand cognition.”