- Moisture-induced embrittlement of PLA is a practical failure mode for 3-D-printed lab racks, while acetone and ethyl acetate cause noticeable swelling and softening; thermal expansion is modest but creep is a major long-term issue.  
- Participants debate the food-safety of FDM-printed plastics: PLA smells like burnt sugar at extrusion temperatures, ABS has a worse thermal expansion coefficient and is not foodsafe, and PCL is suggested as the only potentially food-safe filament.  
- J. Craig Venter Institute’s 2021 paper “Physics-based modeling of whole-cell function: colloidal fundamentals to life-essential processes” and the 2022 Cell article “Fundamental behaviors emerge from simulations of a living minimal cell” are highlighted as milestones in whole-cell computational modeling.  
- In April 2022 Venter sold the La Jolla JCVI facility to UC San Diego for $25 million; most faculty and grants will transfer, while Venter continues a separate non-profit JCVI group.  
- Rudy Ruggles Jr., associated with Venter, is noted for descending 8,500 ft in the Russian MIR-2 submersible to study hydrothermal-vent biodiversity, linking JCVI’s current activities to the earlier Global Ocean Sampling Expedition.  
- A new SpaceX employee bets their manager that Starlink satellites will not be running Rust code within five years, implying insider access to verify the software stack.