- A Craigslist London listing for a £3,500 MICROMANIPULATOR 6100 wafer-probe station and an eBay auction for a Narishige MF-9 microforge with custom micromanipulator were highlighted as attractive low-cost precision-lab gear for bio/DIY setups.  
- Bryan Bishop pushed a series of fresh DIYhpluswiki transcripts from Rebooting-Web-of-Trust 9 (Prague 2019) covering intro talks, group topics, weak signals, and a deep dive on Shamir secret sharing—now all publicly archived at diyhpl.us.  
- A PLOS ONE paper (doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0149774) was circulated describing a magnetic-bead protocol that rapidly assembles long double-stranded DNA from short oligo libraries; participants noted its potential for cheap, automated gene synthesis.  
- UCSF’s 2019 brain-machine-interface study was shared (ucsf.edu/news/414296) demonstrating natural-sounding synthetic speech decoded directly from cortical activity while subjects read fairy-tales aloud, flagged as a major advance toward speech-restoring BCIs.  
- DNSSEC root-key security issues were referenced via a 2010 Schneier post, and a casual query about “making blue roses” appeared, illustrating the channel’s mix of hard crypto discussion with open biotech experimentation.