- The #hplusroadmap channel debated the tension between “feel-good” DIYbio posts and rigorous science, with participants arguing that celebrating poorly-controlled plant-tissue-culture experiments without flame sterilization erodes scientific credibility.  
- A CRISPR journal-club announcement circulated for the foundational 2012 Jinek Science paper that introduced programmable Cas9 genome editing, marking the community’s early engagement with CRISPR.  
- kanzure introduced “papermonk,” a Node/browser replacement for Zotero’s translator stack, releasing a v0.0.1 scraper for PLOS ONE and debating API design choices (discrete methods vs. state-machine navigation) to ensure always-working, testable paper access.  
- AMRI (Advanced Manufacturing Research Institute) was announced as a reboot of the defunct RRRF, offering open-source hardware fellowships under Rice University’s 501(c)(3) umbrella while debating whether strict open-hardware/version-control mandates should be required.  
- A femtosecond-laser/optical-tweezer technique for single-cell optoporation and transfection was highlighted, referencing a Biomedical Optics Express paper demonstrating GFP plasmid delivery into MCF-7 cancer cells.  
- Discussion of ruggedized Android phones (Samsung Rugby, Kyocera) meeting MIL-STD-810 for extreme-environment data logging, alongside plans to build an open-source cellphone (damellis/cellphone2) after an HTC EVO 4G survived a 40 mph fall and was re-flashed via SD-card recovery.