- OpenWetWare’s near-abandonment after the departure of a key maintainer illustrates the fragility of volunteer-run open-science infrastructures.  
- A proposal to engineer bacteria or plants to make carbon nanotubes from atmospheric CO₂ was judged biologically implausible; the closest realistic route discussed was DNA-origami scaffolds expressed in yeast.  
- Participants stressed that synthetic biology is not “programming” in the Turing-machine sense and warned that media claims about “cellular computers” are largely marketing hype.  
- Practical workflow advice: use yeast as a chassis for DNA amplification and reserve plant or multicellular systems only when tissue-specific expression is essential.  
- Science magazine charges at least US $25 k for online advertising, yet reagent suppliers still pay, highlighting the lucrative economics of scientific publishing.  
- An FTP link (ftp://digitalads.aaas.org, credentials daddrop/daddrop) was shared to inspect current ad creatives, underscoring the growing insertion of ads into peer-reviewed articles.  
- A blog post titled “More proof the Big Six of publishing are run by morons” (mikecanex.wordpress.com, 10 Jul 2013) was cited as evidence of systemic mismanagement in traditional publishing.  
- Long-term fix proposed: universities should reclaim publishing responsibilities, but entrenched financial incentives for faculty and administrators remain a major barrier.