- A paper on “Ultrafast near-infrared light-triggered intracellular uncaging to probe cell signalling” (PMID 29176940) was shared as a potential tool for precise optogenetic-style control of intracellular chemistry.  
- Discussion of low-cost microscopy options included the AmScope B120C-E1 ($200) and the possibility of finding fluorescence-capable microscopes for <$50 on Craigslist or thrift stores.  
- Two recent arXiv preprints on AI-driven chemistry were circulated: “Chemception” (1706.06689) shows a minimal-chemistry CNN matching expert QSAR models, while “ChemNet” (1712.02734) introduces a transferable deep network for small-molecule property prediction.  
- A Hacker News thread on “AI in drug discovery is overhyped” was debated; participants defended Stanford’s DeepChem as a TensorFlow-based toolkit rather than an agenda-driven replacement.  
- Materials-informatics links included a Science Advances paper describing a “rechargeable spin battery” via current-induced persistent spin polarization in topological insulators, plus a Nature npj Computational Materials review on machine-learning applications in materials discovery.  
- Testicular organoid protocols (Springer 10.1007/7651_2017_48 and Stem Cell Reports 2016) were posted as open experimental resources for reproductive-tissue engineering.  
- Ethical commentary on germline editing referenced Guardian and Atlantic articles; participants argued that the “emotional significance of reproduction” objection ignores the practical difference between choosing among existing sperm donors and actively editing genomes.  
- A four-part blog history of neural networks and deep learning (Andrey Kurenkov) was distributed as background reading for newcomers to the field.