# Key Points from IRC Discussion

• Jonathan Rothberg's startup Butterfly Network raised $100 million to develop chip-based ultrasound technology using capacitive micro-machined ultrasound transducers (CMUTs), aiming to make medical imaging devices 1,000 times cheaper than current $6 million machines.

• Opentrons launched a Kickstarter for an open-source liquid handling robot for biology, implementing functionality similar to Transcriptic's platform but with publicly shared CAD drawings and assembly guides.

• The conversation explored long-term data storage technologies, particularly the Rosetta Disk project which uses microscopic etching technology to preserve language information, with debate about whether religious texts or practical scientific knowledge should be prioritized for preservation.

• Participants discussed microfluidics fabrication techniques using accessible materials like photolithography with film negatives and microfiche as masks to create 5-10 micron scale features, alongside more advanced Focused Ion Beam (FIB) technology.

• LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) and CLOCKSS were highlighted as distributed digital preservation systems for scholarly content, with CLOCKSS uniquely assigning Creative Commons licenses to abandoned content.

• The group examined unihemispheric slow-wave sleep in dolphins and some birds, which allows them to sleep with one brain hemisphere at a time while remaining partially alert, raising questions about sleep patterns during bird migration.

• Participants debated the practical aspects of archival media accessibility, noting that building a microfilm reader from scratch would be easier than a DVD player in a post-technological scenario.