- Dante Labs offered a same-day flash sale for 30× whole-genome sequencing at $349, payable in Bitcoin; participants noted the expected ~9 million base-pair errors and discussed post-processing against reference datasets to improve accuracy.  
- The UK Nuffield Council on Bioethics released a report giving qualified approval to heritable human genome editing, prompting a public conference in London on 23 July 2018; the report and registration details were circulated.  
- A Bloomberg article reported that the U.S. government is preparing to loosen prescription requirements for certain drugs, reducing physician gatekeeping and potentially increasing direct consumer access to pharmaceuticals.  
- Channel members debated precedents for medical interventions whose regulation is driven by societal rather than individual-health concerns, citing sex-reassignment surgery, IVF, and cosmetic surgery as examples.  
- IRC service disruptions on the 17th caused gaps in the public logs; the channel bot gnusha rejoined and normal logging resumed mid-day.