- A Google Scholar link was shared showing a surge of derivative work building on the 2018 paper “De novo DNA synthesis using polymerase-nucleotide conjugates,” highlighting ongoing innovation in enzymatic DNA synthesis.  
- The Google/SkyWater 130 nm open-source PDK was announced, giving the community the first fully open process design kit for fabricating custom ASICs at a commercial foundry; a Hackaday write-up and a living Google Doc list example projects already underway.  
- Discussion of Illumina-style sequencing-by-synthesis clarified that short read lengths stem from “phasing errors” (chemistry falling out of sync) rather than polymerase mis-stepping, informing parallel efforts to improve de-novo synthesis fidelity.  
- Single-molecule approaches reminiscent of PacBio’s real-time fluorophore detection were weighed; participants noted that while physics-heavy imaging can achieve single-molecule observation, pushing detection efficiency beyond ~99 % remains a major hurdle.  
- A new transcript of Tim Ruffing’s London Bitcoin Devs talk on “Taproot and Schnorr multisignatures” was added to the diyhpl.us wiki, underscoring the channel’s parallel interest in cryptographic primitives for decentralized transhumanist infrastructure.  
- iGEM’s 2020 mentorship application form was circulated, encouraging technically skilled members to guide competing teams in synthetic-biology projects.  
- Recent papers on super-resolution localization microscopy (AIP 2020) and the conceptual distinction between “estimating” versus “measuring” neural firing rates were shared, linking imaging advances to better BCI data quality.