- Falcon-40B, the first Apache-2.0-licensed pretrained large language model, was announced; it reportedly runs on a single A100 40 GB at 4-bit quantization but only yields ~0.5–1 token/s on an A6000, highlighting early open-source LLM performance trade-offs.  
- A novel Mars-transit architecture was proposed: an inflatable habitat that doubles as the tensile tether between two Starships, exploiting hoop-stress margins to create living space and artificial gravity while allowing crew transfer between ships.  
- Discussion of “inappropriately excluded” high-IQ individuals referenced a 2015 Polymath blog post; participants debated whether academia filters for conformity over raw intelligence and how such polymaths could be better integrated or translated to broader society.  
- The group explored possible evolutionary explanations for genius-level cognition, including antagonistic pleiotropy (trade-offs between intelligence and mental health) and the hypothesis that high intelligence may reduce early opportunities to develop discipline.  
- Marc Andreessen’s long-form Twitter essay on AI risk—“Will AI Kill Us All?”—was circulated, framing AI doom scenarios as modern echoes of the Prometheus myth and inviting critical discussion of existential risk narratives.  
- A Cambridge seminar on molecular biology animation (Brady Johnston) was shared, indicating ongoing interest in advanced visualization tools for life-science communication.