This is one of the rare episodes where Gaius Baltar uses his expertise in a sane manner without our seeing his conversing with Cylon Number 6 or otherwise acting unusually bizarrely.
Carbon composite AKA carbon fiber is commonly used in airplanes and F1 race cars because it's lighter and stronger than steel. .
This is the only episode of Battlestar Galactica, besides the first season episode #1.5, "You Can't Go Home Again", in which you see the biological insides of a Cylon Raider.
Sharon uses the term, "Roll the hard six". This has been used twice before in the series. It refers to dice. There are thirty-six possible combinations with a pair of six-sided dice. Of those, there are three ways to roll a six: one and five, two and four, and three and three. This means that there is an 8.3% chance of rolling a six (three possible ways out of thirty-six combinations). If you place your bet on rolling a three and a three, this means that you have only a 2.8% chance of winning. In other words, you are rolling a six the hard way.
Opening credits say there are 47,853 human survivors.