# Key Points from the IRC Discussions

• DIY scientific instrumentation was a focus, with participants sharing resources for home-built Scanning Tunneling Microscopes (STM) capable of nanometer-scale imaging, and a Jeol JSM-T200 Scanning Electron Microscope listing was circulated among participants.

• The lowRISC open-source System-on-Chip platform was discussed, highlighting its tagged memory architecture designed to prevent control-flow hijacking attacks and support advanced functions like fine-grained memory synchronization and garbage collection.

• Bioengineering advances were covered, including the New Organ Liver Prize ($1 million for regenerative solutions that sustain large animals without native liver function for 90 days) and research on functional spinal cord regeneration using olfactory ensheathing cells with peripheral nerve bridging.

• Anti-aging research was mentioned, specifically the "young blood transfusion" approach involving growth differentiation factor 11 (GDF-11), with references to a Nature article on the topic.

• Technical resources were shared, including an Arduino IDE for ESP8266, the Nengo neural simulator (https://github.com/nengo/nengo), and a book on Common LISP for artificial intelligence applications.

• Software architecture discussions included debates about the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern and its potential for creating flexible "any-interface" applications, alongside observations about the standardization advantages of web development compared to desktop GUI development.