# Key Points from #hplusroadmap IRC Discussions

• OpenWetWare (http://openwetware.org) was mentioned as a biology protocol wiki, though it was described as outdated and poorly maintained since a key staff member ("Bill") was removed from the project.

• Participants discussed the technical feasibility of programming bacteria to produce carbon nanotubes, with the suggestion that "yeast expression of DNA origami templates for carbon nanotube assembly" might be the closest realistic approach.

• The group criticized scientific misrepresentation in media, specifically mocking an article that described cognitive processing speeds in "miles per hour," which they considered scientifically meaningless.

• A discussion about academic publishing revealed that Science magazine requires a minimum $25,000 ad spend, using marketing slogans like "Science: the natural selection for your advertising needs."

• Participants debated the state of academic publishing, suggesting that universities should reclaim responsibility for scholarly publishing, though this is complicated by financial entanglements between professors, administrators, and publishers.

• The conversation touched on e-books being "suppressed" by traditional publishing interests, with a shared link criticizing major publishing companies as poorly managed (http://mikecanex.wordpress.com/2013/07/10/more-proof-the-big-six-of-publishing-are-run-by-morons/).

• Technical tools for extracting text from PDFs were discussed, with recommendations for utilities like pdftotext and pdfminer.