Meredith sez:
The DIYbio mailing list (diybio@googlegroups.com) has been hard at work developing molecular biology techniques that are accessible to garage scientists with no budget. The latest development is "keiki gels" — agarose gel electrophoresis using nothing but a drinking straw, a 9V battery and a pair of alligator clips.
This is an amazing example of crowdsourced science — the elapsed time between the initial discussion and Tito Jankowski's working proof of concept was approximately three days.
Crowdsourced science: drinking straw gel electrophoresis
(Thanks, Meredith!)