# Summary of IRC Discussion on November 30, 2012

* A significant development in genomics was shared: direct-to-consumer whole genome sequencing becoming available at $695 for exome sequencing (80x coverage) and $5495 for genomic sequencing (30x coverage), indicating the decreasing cost barriers to personal genomics.

* Discussion about Amazon EC2 cloud computing costs revealed the financial challenges for academic researchers, with participants noting that while $100/month is relatively inexpensive for computing power, it remains prohibitive for graduate students with limited budgets.

* Stanford's cooling glove research was shared (http://news.stanford.edu/news/2012/august/cooling-glove-research-082912.html), which appears to be related to body temperature regulation technology.

* Open Source Ecology's work on hardware modularity patterns was discussed (http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Open_Source_Hardware_Modularity_Pattern_Language and http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Open_Source_Technology_Pattern_Language), along with criticism of their partnership with Alchematter (http://alchematter.org/).

* Participants expressed strong criticism of DIY bioengineering claims about "antidepressant yogurt," highlighting concerns about scientific misinformation in the biohacking community and the need for more rigorous approaches.

* There was discussion about the challenges of design sharing in open hardware projects, with some frustration expressed about Open Source Ecology's approach to collaboration and documentation.