I would love to have all the past lab submissions, synthesised in the lab. It’s an old wish of mine. I have been discussing this with Brourd and Mat and both think this is a good idea. Actually if it was not for them discussing this topic and including me, I would probably still just have been “complaining” about lack of data with regular intervals in the chat, instead of writing about it. Thanks to you both for ideas and feedback on this.
I think there is a lot more to be learned from the designs we have already submitted to the lab - those which did not make it through the voting process. In most of the lab series we need more data to uncover interesting tendencies or back up the ones we already have found.
I will illustrate with an example, why I would like all the data. I made a spreadsheet, where I looked at energy conditions around the neck area. My data criterion was that I would look only at working necks. I had the feeling that a energy pattern were at play in the neck area. I was interested finding out how the placement of energy around the neck helped facilitate making the neck work.
This energy tendency I was onto for months, before I wrote a post about it. I was waiting for more data to see if the tendency I spotted, were confirmed in the other labs as well.
One look at my data and it becomes obvious, that in the labs with few rounds or few working necks, that there is too little data to draw clear conclusions from. I couldn’t get clear tendencies from the star- and the finger lab. (The data spreadsheet originated from this post.)
Having the previous lab submissions folded and scored, would solve my data problem. Then I might be able to predict more tendencies about what is the right energy condition around a neck, for it to be successful. If all the submitted lab puzzles had been synthesised, I could have written my post and theory about it much earlier.
Another positive side effect is, that there will be much more near twin designs, where only one or a few nucleotides have been changed. Those designs have already proven to be very valuable, when it comes to see what pays of to do and what does not.
Broud mentioned that he thinks it would definitely bring in more players. The chance to have ones design synthesized, not having to sit back while other players always have their designs picked.
The more results we get, the more we learn from our submissions. The more we learn, the more we can contribute to science.
More synthesized slots would also means we could have a new game area, where we could test negative hypothesis. To see if designs we think will fail, actually do fail.
Fx. the lab “Things to test” had a new element, the 2-2 loop. It did not behave as usual. We were not sure how to make it work, therefore we experimented a lot. Things that haven’t worked before, just might. I have earlier described why filling multi loop rings and loops with blue nucleotides were a bad idea.
In second lab round, I on purpose made a mod of Mats successful 94% scoring round 1 design, with pure blue inside the 2-2 loop, to rule out that this would work in a design. I also added an extra GC-pair, which I for the sake of the purity of my experiment, probably shouldn’t have. But as I suspected the blue 2-2 loop didn’t work. And for the next two rounds people dared not vote on me. 
If we had a playground in the lab where we can test negative hypothesis, we could test things like this, unpunished. It would even be cool, if we got points for failing in there. People could be allowed to bet, for or against if an experiment will successfully fail. As Mat says: I think the designs would need to be submitted into their own voting category for the idea to work fully.
Experiments with negative hypothesis could lead to finding patterns for why certain things don’t work - sort of the rules of the misfolds. If we can find the rules for what for sure won’t work, we are well on the way to discover more rules about what works and what is to be avoided.
So for Eterna past, present and future – more slots, please…