- A CBC article was shared about a tattoo artist who claims a 90 % success rate in deliberately injecting pigment into the sclera to induce eye-blindness, prompting brief discussion on the relative severity of ocular vs. neurological blindness.  
- kanzure posted the 2016 Genome Biology paper “Gene name errors are widespread in the scientific literature,” highlighting how Excel auto-formatting corrupts gene symbols (e.g., MARCH1 → 1-Mar) and undermines reproducibility in genomics research.  
- Scott Aaronson’s blog post on Google’s “quantum supremacy” milestone was circulated, framing the technical claims and their significance for near-term quantum computing.  
- docl linked a PLOS ONE study showing that trehalose hexaacetate (6-O-Ac-Tre) crosses mammalian cell membranes far better than native trehalose; once inside, intracellular esterases cleave the acetyl groups, releasing free trehalose for cytoprotective applications such as cryopreservation or desiccation tolerance.