- The “ray cats” proposal—genetically engineering cats to glow in the presence of ionizing radiation as a 10,000-year nuclear-waste warning system—was revisited, with archaeologist Cornelius Holtorf noting that the meme itself has already survived 40 years as a cultural marker.  
- Discussion of the ethics and practicality of using trained macaque monkeys for coconut harvesting: proponents argued one monkey replaces ~20 human climbers, virtually eliminates head injuries from falling coconuts, and appears to enjoy the task, while critics claim the practice is tainted by abusive owners and reputational stigma.  
- A Thailand “monkey school” training video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTonhAejRFA) was shared, showing how macaques are taught to pick only ripe coconuts; participants floated tongue-in-cheek ideas like paying monkeys “competitive wages” or switching to drone-mounted .22 LR coconut shooters.  
- Twist Bioscience came under fire from a short-seller (Scorpion Capital) accusing the company of “industry suicide bombing” via unsustainably low DNA-synthesis pricing; background cost-curve data was linked (http://www.synthesis.cc/synthesis/2022/10/dna-synthesis-cost-data).  
- Elbit Systems’ LANIUS quad-rotor “killer drone” promo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4McPHBQ9pNw) was circulated as an example of increasingly compact, autonomous lethality.  
- DARPA’s intense focus on advanced prosthetics was questioned given that U.S. military limb-loss numbers (~1,500 U.S. and 300 U.K. soldiers) are dwarfed by the 2 million civilian amputees in the U.S. alone.  
- A leaked-admin-AWS-keys incident at Infosys, left exposed on PyPI for over a year, was highlighted as a cautionary tale in supply-chain security (https://tomforb.es/infosys-leaked-fulladminaccess-aws-keys-on-pypi-for-over-a-year/).