- A low-cost, open-source PAPR (Powered Air-Purifying Respirator) design was discussed: core requirements are a blower sized for 10–20 W (≈1 A @ 12 V), 3M P100 filter cartridges, airtight 3-D-printable or injection-molded housings, a flexible hose, a hood/face-shield, and a USB-rechargeable 18650 battery pack for maximum interoperability.

- Participants criticized the widely circulated “ventilator” project (https://github.com/jcl5m1/ventilator) for conflating ventilators with PAPRs and for using hot-glue joints and poorly sealed housings; they urged splitting the project into a dedicated PAPR repository and better organizing idle mechanical-engineering talent.

- A deep technical thread explored “cotranslational folding”: proteins begin to fold while still attached to the ribosome; cryo-EM studies (e.g., bioRxiv 722611v2) show nascent chains transition to native structure when linked by ~45-aa “linkers,” and chaperones may form an extended tunnel that prevents premature folding.

- Synonymous codon choice was shown to affect protein levels, secretion efficiency, final folded structure, and post-translational modifications (PNAS 117:3528); explanations include variable tRNA abundance causing ribosomal pausing and transient exposure of nascent segments to modifying enzymes.

- A novel DNA data-storage scheme was shared: “DNA punch cards” use enzymatic nicking to encode bits on native DNA sequences, reported in Nature Communications (2020) and summarized in Scientific American as a path to cheaper, high-capacity archival storage.

- Josiah Zayner’s blog posts (“All my friends are dying,” “The people who fall through the cracks”) were circulated as critiques of the lack of institutional support for biohackers and self-experimenters during the COVID-19 crisis.

- A controversial “solution” to COVID-19 was proposed by Daniel Tillett: deliberately release an attenuated SARS-CoV-2 strain to outcompete virulent strains, bypassing FDA barriers.

- A new arXiv paper (2004.01855) outlines how Bitcoin can be used to build resilient botnet command-and-control infrastructures, highlighting security implications for decentralized networks.