- **Grey-market sourcing of research chemicals**: Participants routinely purchase lab-grade supplements, antibiotics (doxycycline, amoxicillin, erythromycin), and even fish-formulated antifungals on eBay, noting that identical manufacturers supply both veterinary and human versions and that eBay silently filters listings that contain prescription-drug keywords.

- **C60 in olive oil and life-extension DIY**: fenn reports procrastinating on self-experiments with C60 fullerene dissolved in olive oil, a compound popular in longevity circles for its alleged antioxidant and anti-aging effects.

- **ImplicitCAD performance tuning**: juri_ and nmz787 discuss optimizing the open-source ImplicitCAD solid-modeling tool; a hard-coded “forcesteps = 32” parameter in Graphics/Implicit/Export/Render.hs controls RAM vs CPU trade-offs when merging co-planar triangles, and the discussion hints at the need for a more sophisticated nearest-neighbor merging algorithm.

- **Human cloning debate**: Links shared include a STAT article and Hacker News thread asking why no one has attempted human reproductive cloning despite technical feasibility; kanzure notes that pet cloning is already commercialized and that “by the litter” some embryos are simply discarded.

- **Coronavirus origin speculation**: fltrz and lsneff debate whether historic global trade in bat guano for fertilizer and explosives could have seeded earlier coronavirus strains, suggesting today’s “common cold” coronaviruses might be relics of those earlier spillovers.

- **FDA reform advocacy**: kanzure posts a Manhattan Institute policy paper arguing for sweeping FDA regulatory reform, framing it as essential for accelerating biomedical innovation.

- **MLIR compiler infrastructure**: lsneff links to an arXiv paper on MLIR, a new compiler framework designed to sustain software performance gains as Moore’s Law slows, highlighting interest in post-scaling computing strategies.

- **Embodied interaction research**: maaku shares a Carnegie Mellon MDes thesis titled “Developing Embodied Familiarity with Hyperphysical Phenomena,” exploring design methods for visceral, body-based understanding of otherwise abstract or invisible technological phenomena.