- Sci-Hub founder Alexandra Elbakyan was named to Nature’s “10 people who mattered in science” list (http://www.nature.com/news/nature-s-10-1.21157), highlighting the ongoing tension between open-access activism and traditional academic publishing.  
- Channel participants debated systemic flaws in academic science: publish-or-perish incentives, reputation tied to complexity rather than simplification, and the cultural resistance to publishing negative or “boring” results.  
- A proposal was floated to redesign experimental culture so that “failures” must yield 10–20 bits of useful information, shifting reward structures toward reproducibility and away from “science stunts.”  
- Microfluidics discussion centered on a droplet-based cell-culturing workflow: encapsulate single cells in droplets, perform assays, electro-coalesce droplets to release selected cells into a macro culture, then re-encapsulate progeny for the next round—enabling continuous directed-evolution loops.  
- Key microfluidic components cited: droplet fusion (“pillar-induced merging”), electro-coalescence for gentle emulsion breaking (http://pubs.rsc.org/is/content/articlelanding/2014/lc/c4lc00365a), and the historical “bubble valve” concept from 1999 RIKEN work.  
- Practical CAD-to-fab concerns voiced: whether to prototype with simple syringe-driven flow first or attempt an all-in-one test chip containing every valve geometry—latter deemed ~10× more work.  
- Nanopore sequencing was briefly assessed: adequate for pathogen detection but poor accuracy on repetitive regions, limiting broader genomic applications.  
- A new wave of citizen-science books was noted, including Caren Cooper’s “Citizen Science,” prompting discussion on valorization versus critical analysis of grassroots research efforts.