- A new CRISPR toolset called “Cas9-HRs” (Cas9 fused with homologous-recombination stimulators) is reported to double HDR efficiency and cut p53-mediated toxicity 2–4×, enabling safer, larger knock-ins in mammalian cells; the work came out of the BioCurious community and is now being commercialized at CRISP-HR Therapeutics.  
- The ESPRESSO spectrograph on the VLT has confirmed an Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone of Proxima Centauri, prompting immediate discussion about planning an interstellar probe mission.  
- OpenAI’s GPT-3 paper “Language Models are Few-Shot Learners” (arXiv:2005.14165) was circulated, highlighting dramatic few-shot performance across many NLP tasks.  
- “ZKBoo: Faster Zero-Knowledge for Boolean Circuits” (eprint 2016/163) was shared as a resource for building efficient zero-knowledge proofs in open-source privacy projects.  
- The South Atlantic Anomaly—where the inner Van Allen belt dips to ~200 km—was noted as a radiation-hazard consideration for low-Earth-orbit and crewed missions.  
- A Hacker News thread on Soviet control-room aesthetics was linked as inspiration for functional, durable hardware interface design.