- Patrick Collison’s curated list of “corporate labs” (https://patrickcollison.com/labs) was shared as a reference for high-output R&D organizations and the books that document them.  
- Discussion of Dani Eder’s “Seed Factories” concept (https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Seed_Factories) revealed current status: mostly conceptual progress, modest woodworking-focused toolset, and plans to expand into nearby warehouses using proceeds from the Bitcoin boom.  
- Luke Parrish (docl) noted he had left Salem, OR at the end of June after giving a month’s notice, and is now staying with Dani Eder near Atlanta.  
- eleitl reported early-stage involvement in a launch-loop project in Thailand with Keith Lofstrom and Knapman, and plans to bring Mike to San Francisco for meetings with Robert McIntyre (Nectome) and Todd Huffman.  
- A new pre-print on whole-brain, nanoscale imaging was highlighted: “Cortical column and whole brain imaging of neural circuits with molecular contrast and nanoscale resolution” (https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/07/23/374140) combines expansion microscopy and lattice light-sheet microscopy to map synaptic proteins, myelination, and dopaminergic circuits across the entire Drosophila brain and mouse cortex.  
- Links to Indian “garbh sanskar” efforts aiming to produce “fair, tall, customized babies” via supplements, chanting, and eugenics-style rhetoric were circulated, along with the Nuffield Council on Bioethics report on human germline editing (http://nuffieldbioethics.org/project/genome-editing-human-reproduction).