- A blog post on reverse-engineering the x86-64 instruction set via speculative execution side-channels was shared: https://blog.can.ac/2021/03/22/speculating-x86-64-isa-with-one-weird-trick/  
- Participants debated the real-world risk of SARS-CoV-2 variants to vaccinated travelers, citing evidence that mRNA vaccines (Moderna/Pfizer-BioNTech) retain strong efficacy against key mutations such as E484K and N501Y, while noting that J&J’s initial trials were already conducted against these variants in South Africa and Brazil.  
- Discussion highlighted the practical barriers to international travel during the pandemic beyond infection risk, including rapidly changing entry requirements, quarantine logistics, and the cost or feasibility of returning home.  
- nmz787 and streety compared historical posting volumes on the diybio mailing list, with nmz787 topping personal inboxes at 3,159 messages and kanzure ranked second in older Google Groups statistics, illustrating the long-term engagement of core community members.  
- The channel’s humorous “gradstudentbot” (a Markov-chain bot) generated tongue-in-cheek research ideas such as “pouring chemlights into a spinner flask and claiming it’s luminescent E. coli,” prompting calls to upgrade it with GPT-3 for more sophisticated output.