# Summary of #hplusroadmap IRC Discussion (May 12, 2009)

• A paper on cross-kingdom conservation of mammalian and moss transcription, translation, and secretion machineries was shared, suggesting potential applications in synthetic biology across different organisms.

• Discussion of the "Devil's Theory of Innovation" proposed that competition produces stasis while complacency drives change, suggesting that innovation occurs in conditions of abundance rather than scarcity through "relaxed selection."

• Concerns about government surveillance of DIY biologists were discussed, with references to someone claiming to be from the U.S. government contacting amateur biologists with questions about home labs.

• Technical discussion about extracting DNA from microarrays focused on methods to separate desired DNA sequences from the chip-binding portions, with debate about using endonucleases and whether sticky ends would be appropriate.

• A video and notes about searching across large PDF collections was shared, with additional testing of OLPC and Kindle devices as mobile readers for PDF libraries.

• Participants discussed a "Hello World" project in synthetic biology involving GFP (Green Fluorescent Protein) that would express in response to specific binding proteins.

• Work on "adesign" software (likely for DNA design) was mentioned, with challenges in compilation and performance optimization being addressed.