- Optical heterodyning for DIY biology: nmz787 revived a 2012 Google Groups thread (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/diybio/Z-NUjzrdy98) suggesting that optical heterodyning techniques may have untapped potential for low-cost biological imaging or sensing beyond what had previously been discussed.

- Gene-editing oversight concerns: A Gizmodo article (https://gizmodo.com/report-scientists-in-china-are-losing-track-of-gene-ed-1831367684) was shared, highlighting reports that Chinese researchers are “losing track” of gene-edited individuals, underscoring worries about lax monitoring and long-term follow-up in human CRISPR trials.

- NAD+ precursor supplementation: archels pointed to nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) as an anti-aging supplement, noting that it is a direct precursor for biosynthesis of the redox cofactor NADH and is being explored in longevity research.

- BDYHAX 2019 conference: archels announced that tickets for the Body Hacking & Human Augmentation Conference (Austin, TX) were on sale for $1 until New Year’s, with the Eventbrite link (https://www.eventbrite.com/e/bdyhax-2019-human-augmentation-bodyhacking-and-biohacking-conference-tickets-48895632152) provided for registration.

- PDF metadata extraction problem: nsh observed that automatically extracting meaningful “titles” from PDFs remains an unsolved problem; current heuristics (Google Cache, Firefox pdf.js) often fall back to the first sentence or an internal filename such as “JBIO_201700013.indd”, yielding uninformative results.