- OpenAI quietly released the davinci-003 GPT-3 model on 28 Nov 2022; channel members confirmed its existence via e-mail announcements.  
- Nathan Myhrvold’s 2009 Forbes interview resurfaced describing a speculative “molecular harp” technology—an envisioned solid-state physics/chemistry device that could non-invasively perform molecular-level therapy inside the body, likened to Star Trek medical chambers.  
- A new Cell paper on octopus neurobiology was shared: multiple nerve cords between octopus arms create redundant signaling pathways, offering insights for bio-inspired distributed control systems.  
- Nebula Genomics briefly offered 30× whole-genome sequencing for $175, prompting discussion that the price point is finally “cheap enough” for widespread adoption.  
- A Medium post on “IP-NFTs for researchers” was circulated as a proposed open-science funding mechanism that tokenizes intellectual-property rights to finance biomedical R&D.  
- The open-source Whisper automatic-speech-recognition model (GitHub: openai/whisper) was noted as having fallen off the community’s radar despite its utility.  
- A short debate framed academia as a “reputation-laundering Ponzi scheme” in which publication prestige flows upward while junior researchers bear the cost.  
- Lighthearted speculation on the future of human driving and ArduPilot’s readiness for personal flying vehicles punctuated the technical discussion.