@breakliquid.bsky.social and I are delighted to say our OpenEVO preprint is finally live! An open source hand-made turbidostat that's modular, affordable, and made to be customized. Designed with love for the research community. Enjoy!!!💚 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

This is Penny. She found the perfect stick today and is determined to retrieve it. Hasn’t moved an inch so far, but her human didn't raise a quitter. 13/10 (IG: aussies_exploregon)

A tungsten microparticle slurry can be directly applied to the mesh and dried before shooting - showing delivery onto a 20µm paper target (piece of Silver grade Rizla cigarette paper) - but would a thin support film improve the mesh performance?

Business end of a low cost DIY gene gun - powered by a sodastream CO2 canister with minipump-driven vacuum shroud. Microparticle load is contained in a 13mm filter holder on a stainless steel mesh - like John Finer's particle inflow design. Looking at efficiency improvements...

It was very quick and painless to build/customise a touch controller for my prototype SodaStream-powered gene gun - based on an M5Stack Core3SE and UIFlow2. The transformation part is still at testing stage, but looks promising. (Required for chloroplast transformation in Marchantia, using spores)

If you're like me, and looking for a (cheap) laminar flowhood that can be used at home for handling sterile cultures - check out https://funguyequipment.com/collections/flow-hood. Fairly lightweight (thin acrylic and 3D printed panels), but is portable and easily packed away.

Tiny buds forming in my Anigozanthos gabrielae! So smol, tho probably need more light but oh well still a flower

Slowly getting there!

#PlantSciJobs 🌱 Postdoctoral Research Associate (x2) and Research Assistant (x2) Dr Edwige Moyroud is seeking 2 Postdocs and 2 Research Assistants to join her team investigating petal patterning Applications close: 5 June: Research Assistant bit.ly/4a32ffK 17 June: Postdoc bit.ly/4dT2LOC

This spring I took over and redesigned the only Gen Ed on plants here #IB103. We walked through every core aspect of plant bio in lectures & labs, but also through art & design. I had a blast, the evaluations are rewarding (4.9/5), the redesign got an award from the college, and a little press too!

Horseshoe crab eyes are wild lookin.

🎨 Nature's been painting with betaxanthins and betacyanins all along — now you can too! Thanks to @kamounlab.bsky.social, AMBER and GOLD add new colors to the palette of pigmentation genes for plant research, education, and floral design. Find the plasmids here: www.addgene.org/browse/artic...

THIS. I used to teach intro dairy science and I told my students that if they were to take one thing away from the classes, it should be DO NOT DRINK RAW MILK.

One of my longer running projects is to adapt Siberian irises to our sandy soils. I planted about 30 seedlings, and then over the years, I culled those that didn't thrive without supplemental water in my sandy soil.

The name is FLOWER. OPEN FLOWER. #OpenFlower hits the big stage 🔥🌺🌷🌱 Juan Pablo & Nick @nickdesnoyer.bsky.social

Plasmids are golden-gate compatible and make great reporters & teaching tools 🧬✨

Genes for genetic painting in flowers now available on Addgene!: addgene.org/browse/artic...

Starting this month, more than 900 deep-sea ocean sensors will be pulled out of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans off the coast of Washington, Oregon, Alaska, North Carolina and Greenland. https://to.pbs.org/43M9LIi

If you are going to comment on the proposed changes to how science is done in the US, please use this guide. The rules specify that you have to mention the number associated with the proposed changes, and this blog has those. Here is where to comment: www.federalregister.gov/documents/20...

tl,dr; Scientists no longer allowed to use federal funding to publish, attend meetings, or talk to the public. They cannot collaborate internationally. Grants can be cancelled for any reason, at any time, political appointees have a final say over what gets funded, and who gets funded.

For an idea of what I'm working towards with this project, you can look at the flowers of the not-so-closely related Psophocarpus tetragonolobus. Among its flower colors is a nice blue. 1111. Deep magenta bean flower. 2222. Blue bean flower.

When potting up our bare root raspberry canes when they arrived. We had lots of fibrous root trimmings left over. Rather than throw them in the composter we thought we'd just plant them all and see what happens. I'm pleased to say it looks like we will have many more plants from them.

Eriochilus dilatatus sp. undulatus - Crinkle-leaved Bunny Orchid Still seeing a few Bunny Orchids flowering in the Perth Hills... like this Crinkle-leaved Bunny. The side view shows the curled labellum, two white lateral sepals and the two smaller petals. #orchids #ozflora #wildoz #inaturalist 🌿

I am delighted that my illustration, of senescing cherry laurel leaves infected with bacterial shot hole (Pseudomonas syringae), has been displayed in the ABA online exhibition ‘Unusual’. See my piece here hgpenningtonart.com/... Explore the exhibition www.assocbotanicalar...

The NIH has been holding back grants from funds Congress has already approved. www.wsj.com/opinion/get-...

TIL that mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia, native to the woods of the US east coast) has that weird inverted-umbrella shape to the flowers because they hold pockets of pollen under tension and LAUCH them at bees! Up to eight miles an hour! 🧪

My great grandfather was an obgyn who got his license in like 1925. My family inherited one of his medical devices and I want to know what it is. Anyone have ideas? #medsky

A big lesson from working in science is that you'd be amazed what we don't know yet.

🌊🔬The unique way of kelp embryogenesis: Cell lineage and single-cell transcriptomics reveal the radical switch turning cells into rhizoids in Saccharina embryos: ▶️ New preprint doi.org/10.64898/202... #evolution #embryo #scRNAseq #marinebiology #kelp #algae #celldivision #transcriptomics

You can predict how many segments are inside a citrus fruit. 🍊🍋‍🟩🧪 @alexdainis.bsky.social explains how citrus fruits develop from the ovaries of citrus flowers. #Citrus #Biology #ScienceExperiment #Fruits #Science

Printing & packing this evening, my kitchen island doubles as a work station 😄 #prints #australiana #wildlifeart

Although the red pigments made by flowering plants and liverworts are produced by distinct chemical pathways, here we found that they are induced by homologous complexes of transcription factors. @currentbiology.bsky.social

Our lab is proud to present our latest work harnessing Bridge Recombinase for genome-scale editing in diverse bacteria, microbiome editing, and programmable horizontal gene transfer.

🗣️ FOLKS! Here at #AwesomeBirds Inc., we don’t like to kid ourselves. Warblers put asses in seats and that’s just a fact. Here the team was swamped by warbs, but we focused in on a tinkly little guy ✨ who just flew in from Colombia! See if you can pick him out…

In 23 states, including five presidential swing states, candidates who have denied election results are running for offices that have a direct role in certifying future elections, a new report finds.

Momma francolin opens up the pantry for her chicks. These Old World pheasant relatives found in Asia & Africa are terrestrial (but not flightless) omnivores. Termites create "mud tubes" to allow them to move from soil to tree without risk, but they're no match for momma francolin & her chicks.

It’s the season for Styphelia that’s for sure! Styphelia tenuifolia, named for its long extended floral tube, the longest out of any of them, making it quite an easy species to ID!

my favorite trail cam pic ever

👋 Transposon lovers: registration is now open for the CSHL TE meeting! We have a 🔥 lineup of invited speakers and many slots for short talks selected upon abstract across all areas of TE biology. 🧬➰🧬 #TEsky Abstract deadline: July 10 meetings.cshl.edu/meetings.asp...

This may be the funniest thing I've seen about the impending Odyssey so far.

Yo, anyone want to be a Bird Identification Machine Learning Software Engineer for the wonderful Cornell Lab of Ornithology, home of the Merlin app?!? It’s remote! I do not have these skills but maybe you do! #jobs jobs.hr.cornell.edu/us/en/job/WD...

Spatial control of anthocyanin and proanthocyanidin production in tomato fruits by competitive MBW complexes for seed dispersal #research #PlantCommunications cell.com/plant-commun...

So far that little stand has sold approximately 120 plants!!! It's done so well that I am going to go get more from Pinelands Nursery before our upcoming market this Saturday. Like... damn, has hyping native plants in this neighborhood over the last 2 years actually had its intended effect?!

Found this lovely orchid over the weekend. I think it’s Eriochilus helonomo

Genome of wallflower (Erysimum cheiri) reveals fusion–driven karyotype evolution and a metabolic basis of flower color diversity: academic.oup.com/plphys/artic... @plantphys.bsky.social @ceitec.eu

So many Pygmy Droseras out and about! The first one may be Drosera albonotata as it came from a patch I saw in bloom before! But these lil Droseras need flowers for IDs from photo really!

Two big things for talks: 1. use the mic, and 2. use a bigger font. No, bigger than that.

Less than a week left to apply! Come join us at UU Plants!

There are several patches of wild plums (Prunus americana) in my area. Two of my favorite trees are somewhat inaccessible, so I decided to try grafting them onto rootstock that I can plant in a more convenient place.