Congratulation @transitionalform.bsky.social @instmolplantsci.bsky.social for publishing the next chapter of your thesis @currentbiology.bsky.social ! Great work showing that the two fundamental vascular tissues - xylem and phloem evolved asynchronously. Read Laura's thread for more details 👇👇

Our last invited speaker for the #NRPDTP26 conference is @hee-kyung-ahn.bsky.social from the @instmolplantsci.bsky.social!

Institute of Molecular Plant Sciences are at the Meadows Festival! Please visit if you'd like to know more about what we do and why we study molecular plant sciences 🌱 @instmolplantsci.bsky.social

To celebrate this year's Fascination of Plants Day (18 May), students & postdocs from @instmolplantsci.bsky.social ran a number of exciting activities at @thebotanics.bsky.social. We had plant fossils, 3D-printed plant models, and more! Well done to our amazing team of volunteers! 🌱🌸

Last week, to celebrate Prof. Andrew Hudson’s new Emeritus status, members of @instmolplantsci.bsky.social competed in a friendly cricket match: the Snapdragons 🌸 vs. the Tomatoes 🍅. The Snapdragons, fittingly Andrew’s team, were determined to be the best model system of the match!

Delighted to see this piece in The Biologist, the magazine from @rsb.org.uk. Tried to capture themes that emerged from valuable conversations with many great 🌱 colleagues. Thank you @tomireland.bsky.social for the opportunity to contribute!

With the number of students studying #PlantScience declining each year, a community of educators is taking steps to transform the subject into an engaging, modern subject, central to the green jobs of the future. Read the article: biologist.rsb.org.uk/regrowing_pl... #FascinationOfPlantsDay

Super excited to see Atlas of Botany in print!!! A pleasure to work with the wonderful team from DK and the @thebotanics.bsky.social I wrote the Ancient Biomes section covering some of my favourite stories about plant evolution from the last 500 million years! @instmolplantsci.bsky.social

With wonderful colleagues, talking about plants walking through the beautiful greenhouses @thebotanics.bsky.social! couldn't ask for a better Away day @instmolplantsci.bsky.social

The leadership team of the @instmolplantsci.bsky.social had its Away Day on Wednesday. There were lots of valuable discussions and enjoyable walks among the plants! 🌻 Thank you @thebotanics.bsky.social for hosting us!

We are delighted to see that our colleague @drannisr.bsky.social has been chosen to be part of the inaugural cohort of the @royalsoced.bsky.social new Research Leadership Scheme! It is great to have 🌱 plant scientists among Scotland’s next generation of research leaders rse.org.uk/building-sco...

Huge congratulations @tearei.bsky.social ky.social for passing your viva!! Big thanks to Justin Goodrich and Luke Mander for acting as examiners @instmolplantsci.bsky.social 🌿🌿

If you have nice photos of orchids, please consider helping our colleague @milneorchid.bsky.social!

A new blog is out on our @instmolplantsci.bsky.social website! Go check it out! Our Head of Institute, Prof. Catherine Kidner, discusses how taxonomic changes in the genus Begonia impact present genomic research! biology.ed.ac.uk/plant-scienc...

Huge congratulations to the newest Dr from the lab - Dr @sannie-zishanfu.bsky.social @instmolplantsci.bsky.social!!! A special thanks to Jacob Suissa for making the trip over from the US! It’s been great spending the last couple of days chatting about all things ferns and lycophytes 🌿

This #FossilFriday we welcomed Dr Artai Santos from @uniofaberdeen.bsky.social to our Evo-Devo seminar. Artai shared amazing findings on Cretaceous seagrasses with evidence of herbivory from El Chango, México. #palaeobotany #EvoDevo @edinburgh-uni.bsky.social @instmolplantsci.bsky.social

Thank you @sandyheth.bsky.social for being an amazing supervisor!! It was a wonderful PhD journey working in the group at the @instmolplantsci.bsky.social. Thanks so much Andrew and Jacob, for the enjoyable discussion. Look forward to continue exploring ferns and more in the future!

A wonderful seminar by @saskiahogenhout.bsky.social today! Thanks for making the trip north to @instmolplantsci.bsky.social

What to learn more about the enigmatic organism Prototaxites?? Have a read of our new Quick Guide in @currentbiology.bsky.social It includes another great palaeo-reconstruction of the Rhynie ecosystem from @matt-humpage.bsky.social

A new blog is out on our website! Go check it out! For International Women and Girls in STEM day (11.02) @hee-kyung-ahn.bsky.social reflects on the gender gap in science, highlighting achievements and remaining challenges. biology.ed.ac.uk/plant-scienc...

New Publication: The frequency and importance of polyploidy in tropical rainforest tree radiations @instmolplantsci.bsky.social @edinburghbiology.bsky.social #polyploidy #plantevolution nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Very proud to present, together with @plantteaching.bsky.social, Agnes Uhereczky, @yoselin.bsky.social, Sofie Goormachtig and @mehta-lab.com, our @jxbotany.bsky.social community resource paper on building a diverse and inclusive plant science community 🌱. academic.oup.com/jxb/advance-... (🧵 1/2)

Plants use cell-surface and intracellular receptors that collaborate to detect pathogens🦠. We discovered that a key #ubiquitin recognition event recruits both receptor types into an unexpected dual receptor complex that boost the translation of defence proteins and establishes robust #PlantImmunity👇🏾

Read all about Diego's hunt for lycophytes around Scotland in this post! 👇👇

A new blog is out on our website! 📄 Go check it out! Diego Sanchez Ganfornina from @sandyheth.bsky.social's lab talks about the field work he just completed in Scotland. He is trying to generate a lycophyte living collection – likely UK’s largest! 🌿 biology.ed.ac.uk/plant-scienc...

This week we had a special celebration. Paul (from our Plant Growth Facilities team) performed a Wassailing blessing for the young apple trees 🍎 around the institute. Wassailing is a tradition from the west country region of England - famous for its apples - and... (🧵 1/2)

It was wonderful to present our Manifesto for Plant Science Education (published in @plantspeopleplanet.bsky.social) at the Botanic Garden Education Network (BGEN) conference today. 🌱 Thank you Lauren Baker & organising committee for the invite! nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

The very first Dr from the group! Congratulations Laura @transitionalform.bsky.social @instmolplantsci.bsky.social for passing your viva yesterday!! 🎉🎉 Thanks so much @seanhmcmahon.bsky.social and Paul Kenrick for acting as examiners

Really exciting to get some press coverage on our Prototaxites paper @instmolplantsci.bsky.social @edinburgh-uni.bsky.social www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Excited to share our new investigation of Prototaxites! We found no support for a fungal affinity and instead suggest it is best considered an entirely extinct complex eukaryotic lineage Great team effort @transitionalform.bsky.social Corentin Loron, and many others! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

A new blog is out on our website. Go check it out! Selen Dinge from @vanooijenlab.bsky.social discusses the intersection between art & science with Irene Aldazabal, fellow PhD student and artist. Irene has explored visual & spatial representations of biological time. biology.ed.ac.uk/plant-scienc...

This is great! Last week at @instmolplantsci.bsky.social I was asked what lessons about plants I wish were covered in schools, and my response was "Developmental Plasticity" 🌱 We still have so much to learn about and from plants, and this short video is a good one to share with your educator pals!

So lucky to be part of this wonderful community of plant scientists 🌱

It's our annual #PlantScience Day! 110 attendees, 2 amazing plenary talks from Prof. John Christie @glasgow.ac.uk and Prof. Mary Williams @plantteaching.bsky.social , 10 talks from IMPS members, 15 posters and 4 awards!

IMPS PhD Student Anshika Bhatla recently had the privilege of volunteering at the National Museum of Scotland, supporting senior secondary pupils in hands-on molecular biology workshops organized by the Public Engagement Manager from the University of Edinburgh.

Are you looking for a PhD in Plant Science? Check our our project on barley canopy architecture. Combine genetics and physics to understand how awns influence barley grain development. Find out more here: lnkd.in/eWhWammJ Apply by 14th December. #PhDPosition #PlantSci @instmolplantsci.bsky.social

This new work investigates rhizotaxy on 3 rhizomorphic lycopsids including the unusual Mississippian-aged Oxroadia. We highlight the development of rhizotaxy on a juvenile Oxroadia as well as on the extant Isoetes. If you’re interested check out academic.oup.com/aob/advance-... @annbot.bsky.social

Huge congratulations to @jeremywyman.bsky.social for publishing the results of your Masters thesis. The work includes a new reconstruction of the Carboniferous isoetalean Oxroadia by the brilliant @palaeojules.bsky.social 🧵1/2

Huge congratulations @jeremywyman.bsky.social @instmolplantsci.bsky.social for publishing the results of your masters thesis @annbot.bsky.social The work includes a new reconstruction of the Carboniferous isoetalean Oxroadia by the brilliant @palaeojules.bsky.social academic.oup.com/aob/advance-...

Meet Ostreococcus tauri! Ostreococcus tauri, a marine green alga and the smallest known eukaryotic organism on Earth! Despite being only about 1 micron across, this ocean-dwelling microalga has all the hallmarks of complex life: a nucleus, mitochondria, and even a circadian clock. 🕰️ 🧵1/3

Thanks @wickellomics.bsky.social for the brilliant @instmolplantsci.bsky.social seminar! Fascinating study of CAM evolution and I’m always excited for all things Isoetes.

Here is my @currentbiology.bsky.social dispatch on an excellent article by the @coudertlab.bsky.social. Re-visiting the shoot branching field (and learning many new things in the process!) brought back fond memories from my time at @slcuplants.bsky.social. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Very excited to announce that our collaborative manifesto for 🌱 #PlantScience #Education has now been published! Educators from >10 countries and 30 institutions have contributed to it and we are incredibly proud of the final output. Here is a short thread 🧵1/4 doi.org/10.1002/ppp3...

It was great to have the opportunity to contribute to this piece 😁 and to attend such a great conference that inspired it

@instmolplantsci.bsky.social PhD students Anshika Bhatla, Yumali Hewage, Mengke Zhou, Emilien Krempf and Postdoc Dr Lara Esch had the pleasure of attending #Euroseeds2025 Congress in Edinburgh last week. Here is a short thread on their experience... 🧵1/3 #PlantScience #Agriculture

Miriam Gifford @giffordlab.bsky.social from the Uni. of Warwick to @edinburgh-uni.bsky.social is an @instmolplantsci.bsky.social alum and it was fantastic to see her ground-breaking work on rhizobia-induced nodule formation, and the associated soil microbiome effects! #WomeninSTEM #PlantScience

Congrats to Menke Zhou in Halliday lab! @instmolplantsci.bsky.social

🌱 Toby Coombe-Tennant (@instmolplantsci.bsky.social) presenting “Investigating the potential role of riboregulation in paclitaxel biosynthesis” 🌿 Toby recently published a review on paclitaxel synthesis in our Medicinal Plants special issue: 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/jxb/erae240 #JXB75 #PlantScience 🧪

Excited to share our recent paper @newphyt.bsky.social where we describe evidence of a Jurassic nurse log from Scotland! Great work led by @anajusagasti.bsky.social Sophie Burne and @jeremywyman.bsky.social @instmolplantsci.bsky.social 🧵 👇 1/6 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Our recent paper @newphyt.bsky.social @anajusagasti.bsky.social @instmolplantsci.bsky.social is featured today in the Sunday Post! Thanks Sally McDonald for your piece helping to promote and communicate Scotland’s rich fossil heritage nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...