• A 1996 proposal for micro-fluidic logic gates was revisited; scaling suggests an 8086-level CPU could fit in ~2.5 cm³ if built with shrinky-dink microfluidics, opening a path to fully fluidic replicators.

• A paper demonstrated multiplex oligo synthesis inside standard PCR capillaries using three 405 nm LEDs and photolabile protecting groups, achieving 160 nt in 16 h (~360 s/base) and pointing toward an integrated synthesize-and-amplify device.

• LED-based “photoporation” at 405 nm (sub-mW, tens of ms) and AFM-tip delivery were highlighted as reagent-free, bench-top alternatives to electroporation or viral vectors for mammalian and C. elegans cell transfection.

• Single-plasmid PCR was shown possible: an AFM tip can pick up one plasmid molecule and directly amplify it, raising the prospect of AFM-mediated, pick-and-place genome assembly without bulk chemistry.

• Participants outlined a speculative workflow combining AFM manipulation of individual DNA strands, an ordered sticky-end ligation grammar, on-tip ligase finishing, and iterative assembly for very-large-genome synthesis.

• The four-gene VirB7–VirB10 transmembrane channel from Agrobacterium tumefaciens was identified as a portable “natural competence” cassette that could be biobricked to make other organisms readily transformable.

• Open-source thermocycler designs were compared: Idaho Scientific’s capillary-tube “light-bulb” machine achieves sub-minute cycles, while others favored Peltier-driven aluminum blocks or gallium heat baths for rapid, uniform temperature control.

• Practical DIY-bio fabrication tips included using polypropylene micro-centrifuge tubes that expand when heated to improve thermal contact in custom PCR blocks, and embedding constraint logic in Python lambdas instead of expression trees for CAD parameterization.