# Key Points from IRC Discussion

• Participants discussed various methods for accessing academic papers, including sci-hub which uses proxies from approximately 20 universities, alongside resources like a wiki on "where to find PDFs" and tools such as paperbot (https://github.com/kanzure/paperbot).

• The conversation highlighted the economic challenges in scientific research, noting that "80% of postdocs in Canada earn $38,600 or less per year before tax," suggesting an opportunity for accessing inexpensive scientific talent.

• DNA origami and molecular nanotechnology were extensively discussed, with references to key researchers like Rothemund, Winfree, and Yan's lab at ASU, including debates about different approaches to molecular self-assembly.

• Open-source nanotechnology tools were mentioned, particularly nanoengineer (https://github.com/kanzure/nanoengineer), which was described as needing attention due to outdated code, and cadnano (https://github.com/sdouglas/cadnano2), which has replaced nanoengineer in some research contexts.

• A potential service for helping stalking victims identify and gather digital evidence about their stalkers was proposed, though ethical concerns were raised about charging for such a service when vulnerable people might not be able to afford it.

• The discussion revealed the technical complexity of modern browser development, with Firefox reportedly requiring "3000+ machines" for their build and test farm.

• Participants noted the distinction between traditional DNA sequencing methods producing electropherograms and modern high-throughput sequencing (like Illumina) that provides sequence data with quality scores.