• Sci-Hub has become the de-facto paper-sharing infrastructure for the channel, with multiple mirror domains (e.g., sci-hub.cc) and a Tor hidden service actively circulated to maintain access despite takedowns.

• Second-hand consumer laser/LED hybrid projectors (Casio SLIM XJ-A142, Sony MP-CL1) now provide 2 000–2 500 lumens for US$100–600, representing a two-order-of-magnitude price drop from the ≥ US$1 M aerospace-grade units of a decade ago, while offering 20 000-hour diode lifetimes when properly cooled.

• Hobbyists are extracting 445 nm blue diodes from these projectors to build 50–200 W handheld “laser bazookas,” a practice that has triggered safety warnings and caused some high-power OEM models to be discontinued.

• An open “electronically-directed polymerase” evolution platform was sketched: recess-nanowell CMOS chips where each well contains a single emulsion droplet with a mutant polymerase tethered between antibody-linked electrodes; optical illumination would modulate electrical properties, enabling massively parallel genotype–phenotype screening and micropipette recovery of promising variants.

• Photocleavable fluorescent nucleotides (PNAS 2004) and custom photoresponsive amino acids were proposed as molecular building blocks for light-actuated protein conformation changes that could drive the polymerase selection system described above.