Exciting PhD project with me and @vorontsovams.bsky.social RBG Kew on Grass Diversity, developing a phylogeny using morphology and genomics for the tropical forage grass genus Urochloa. Applications at centa.ac.uk/students... but contacts Bat or me to discuss

2 job adverts on a NERC project w myself + @darrenobbard.bsky.social on “What determines the virome: ecology and the environment, evolution, or species history?” early 2026 in @uniexecec.bsky.social - Postdoc: jobs.exeter.ac.uk/hrpr_webrecr... - RA: jobs.exeter.ac.uk/hrpr_webrecr... Pls share!

One of the best dinners and then seminar I've had was with Frank Stahl. He sat down with overhead projector and all the 200 in the audience felt they had a personal tutorial on DNA replication and his super-elegant research. RIP age 95. www.nytimes.com/2025...

Interested in co designing a fully funded PhD project with ‪@vorontsovams.bsky.social‬ and me on Urochloa plant biodiversity, evolution, morphology and genomics? Please contact us. Building on exciting work on the forage grass by @LizoMasters academic.oup.com/aob/article/...

Grrr. My appeal every 5 years or so, as frustration boils over. Why doesn't any web browser print out roughly what you see on your screen? I see nice versions of the webpage - full screen, landscape, portrait, mobile phone - but no major browser can print anything like them.

I'm finding LLM / AI models like Grok, Deepseek, ChatGPT, Google search lab useful to explain things at suitable level. Notable they don't just rehash Wikipedia or unhelpful Microsoft manuals. Today's examples: GANTT charts; IF/TRUE/FALSE in Excel; Harvard referencing

For #internationalbiodiversityday I'm happy to post a program The Call of Plants www.bilibili.com/vid... about our interests by https://www.pta.eco/#internationalbiodiversitydayPlant Technology Alliance & Dency Cheng, Guangdong & Hong Kong. A great organization bringing nature back to us ... more later!

Many opportunities to exploit rhizosphere microbiome for crops. No longer only consider plant genome/GWAS for traits: look at fungi/bacteria. New multisite field trial complexity we can analyse @TrendsPlantSci Rodomiro Ortiz, Sangam Dwivedi, @plgepts EtAl www.sciencedirect.co...

Are others getting 'verify' boxes when wanting to access published papers (even open access)? Is this major publishers trying to stop Deep Learning / Generative AI / ChatGPT accessing refereed work? I want my papers used by AI models easily, not push them to Reddit or Facebook

Academic climate: It’s no longer ‘publish or perish’; It’s ‘Be visible or vanish’ says @drtimiolubiyi “It is not just what you publish; it is who sees it, talks about it, and shares it that matters." businessday.ng/opini... Hs analysis has a lot of sense; I don't agree all

Has anyone tried this in submission cover letter:"We tick required ‘check/tick boxes’ randomly where there is no appropriate answer. Our answer has no validity. We include early career/retired authors where academic e-mails are deleted; and OA fees are covered by agreements."

I'm reading PhD applications which have a question about time management. Every one I read thinks they apply for something where every hour is planned in advance and accounted for (and presumably billed!). Not one had time for getting ideas, reading, following up crazy thoughts

For the 4th year in a row, my all-sky camera has been taking an image of the sky above the Netherlands every 15 seconds. Combining these images reveal the length of the night changing throughout the year, the passage of clouds and the motion of the Moon and the Sun through the sky. #astrophotography

It's early 2025, but I think I've found product-of-the-year: a USB Tester / Power Meter. Shows what is charging, measures voltage, battery mAh or Wh, tests batteries, adaptors, whether "PD" on a USB C means "power delivery" or "display port", graphs transfers etc. for c 10£$€

RNA control of reverse transcription in a diversity-generating retroelement www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Who guessed Search would change in 2024: 'People now expect answers to questions, not just a stack of links. Perplexity, OpenAI, & Google raced to create “answer engines”, combining web results with generative AI models' says @silverchairnews & @hum_works www.silverchair.com/...

My lecture on Biodiversity, Conservation and Agriculture to a large public audience at Dinghu, 1st national nature reserve in China. Discussin success of agriculture feeding people but at cost of sustainability: we can solve now population is static

Genome-Wide Identification of Lectin Receptor-like Kinase Gene Family in Avena sativa and Role in Salt Stress Tolerance with Xiong Gui & Qing Liu: genomics, localization and expression shows the value of these genes www.mdpi.com/3062188 #mdpiijms @IJMS_MDPI @MDPIOpenAccess

#COP29 showed ways to protect biodiversity: azertag.az/en/xeber/uk_... Great opportunities to discuss how agricultural genetics can help both mitigate GHG and adapt to climate change while enhancing agriculture can preserve areas with biodiversity. And tertiary education is critical!

🧬 New article in @aobp.bsky.social analyzing the diversity and duplication of flavonoid biosynthetic genes in Musaceae species, highlighting their potential for enhancing cold stress resistance in bananas through breeding. Full #openaccess 👉 https://buff.ly/4eqyy7X #PlantScience

My work on a pangenome for the hexaploid oilseed crop Camelina sativa is now out early access in Genetics! This young polyploid genome has a small pangenome to match it's low SNP diversity, but regained lost diversity by packing in all the unique genes from its 3 diploid progenitors.

People are quite literally going bananas for bananas. In 2022, the total global production of bananas reached 140 million tons. The next time you eat one, consider the genes responsible for their taste, texture and high fruit yield allowing them to remain a global daily staple in most households.

Looking forward to discussions, reviewing progress (or lack of) & target setting for UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference le.ac.uk/news/2024/n... Great to have day dedicated to Food, Agriculture & Water. How can research & genetics deliver food sustainabiltiy?

Second issue of "Biological Diversity" journal now online onlinelibrary.wiley.... @BD_SCBG Diversity of content nicely reflects the title: birds, farmland and rewilding, plant reproduction, fungal pathogens, new species and population biology. #PlantSci #Science #Biology

U.S. Coordinated Framework for Biotechnology unified website for approvals & regulations from the 3 US agencies, @USDA @US_FDA @EPA usbiotechnologyregul... helping to show which agency and which rules are applicable. Need to then to agencies to see what is in line for approval

Warning to students moving countries: extreme care with scam emails you are receiving! Very clever people target nervous foreign students with believable ‘offers’ or 'solutions'. Don't engage, if in any doubt at all ask your supervisor or institution IT service.

Informative video with impressive buzz pollination by bumblebees of Primula (Dodecatheon) meadia (Shooting Star) and nectar unting in various species in US Prairie. Amazing slow motion (from 7:06), covered with huge amounts of pollen that falls off in air! youtu.be/fQsnPAWQqcI...

Very sorry to hear Joe Gall, Carnegie, brilliant cytogeneticist, fundamentally contributing to modern understanding of chromosome structure, discovering satellite DNA, showing NOR/rDNA, &pioneer of in situ hybridization, has passed away aged 96. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_... A wonderful life

News & Views: "Crop genetics: Unlocking alleles from exotic wheat" rdcu.be/dR0Dg Screening of a landrace wheat collection identifies beneficial novel haplotypes that improve modern wheat without negative linkage drag or pleiotropy. A comment on rdcu.be/dR0D6 #PlantScience

Food from Grass: Genetics and Digital Twins to optimize ruminant agricultural sustainability molcyt.org/2024/09/10/f... summary of presentation on cattle/cows/ruminants, forage grasses and microbes to reduce methane @UKDairyDay showcasing best genetics, husbandry & technology for milk #dairyday

Our Food from grass: Genetics and Digital Twins to optimize sustainability, including methane greenhouse gas reduction approaches, ready for science area @UKDairyDay #DairyDay Looking forward to seeing the best stock and best farming anywhere next week

After Muthama Muasya 's talk, I'm even more looking forward to @IBCCapeTown2029 #IBC2029 #IBCXXI in Greater Cape Floristic Region #biodiversity hotspot with <<1% of area but 20% of African diversity. #IBC2024 and wonderful science in Capetown, Stellenbosch, Kirstenbosch and beyond

Muthama Muasya Cape Town goes through special & unique African habitats and traits with unique evolutionary opportunities: C4, spines, epiphytes, underground structures, fire, trees/shrubs in @annbot @AoBPlants @InSilicoPlants talk (report @TrudeSch as I'm isolated) #IBC2024

John Pannell Lausanne gives a comprehensive talk on dioecy, monoecy, and resource allocation with floristics, ecology, genetics & genomics. I've had enough of online talks, but needed for me today. Super integration of diverse publications. #IBC2024 scholar.google.se/ci...

Aaahhh. Choice made between Muthama Muasya and Toby Kellogg at 8.30 in N104 & N103. Neither. Sorry. I'm Feeling fine, as expected from 8am starts and 1am finishes: Thought I'd use the last test I've got. Stay well all. #IBC2024 #COVID19 #Covid_19

A difficult choice at 8.30 Saturday for me with two brilliant colleagues talking: Muthama Muasya on African Flora in N104; and Toby Kellogg on 20 million years of grass evolution in N103 #IBC2024

Michael J. Donoghue #ibc2024 Plenary: “The phylogenetics of plant geography: past, present and future” 2003 pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21680431/ 2004 pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16701326/ 2008 pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18695216/ & more (preprint w/ Erika Edwards) @ibc2024 #Botany #PlantScience 🌾🧪🌱🌍🌿🍄🌻🔬

Shout out to AV audiovisual crews @IFEMA Madrid venue for #IBC2024 Excellent sound and projection in all rooms of the conference. Lots of things I don't like here but most important is seeing and hearing people and slides so clearly.

The horrors of live blueing /Tooting or whatever it is, and copying tags on 2 platforms! Mike Barker @BarkerLab had the inspiring polyploid keynote this morning #IBC2024 Apologies.for spelling!

Doug Soltis & Mark Chase moves to APG5 APGV. Shows phylogenetics corrected w DNA taxonomy: Nymphaea not close to Nelumbo etc! Base pattern settled but more needed, integrating incongruent nuclear/chloroplast trees. #IBC2024 I love Cronquist's bubbles & Dahlgren's Dahlgrenograms!

Oats Avena: Qing Liu puts mitochondrial genome assembly into wider context of evolution of her Avena genome assemblies and polyploid chromosomal rearrangements, with organelle-nuclear sequence transfer #IBC2024 link.springer.com/ar... genome expansion: link.springer.com/ar...

I love talks at #IBC2024 sorting out really complex taxa - underpin all biodiversity studies with implications for CBD, climate, SDGs and more. Ambika I, Calicut, Kerala, Does a brilliant job telling us about features & boundaries of grass tribe Jansenelleae Voronts (Poaceae)

Cassiano Welker gives impressive coverage of Brazil grass diversity, including sister to other grasses in Anomochoolideae #IBC2024 Now what about genome assemblies from these (& I want other Brazilian spp in Joinvillea & other Ecdeiocoleaceae) ?

Extremeophile grasses from @AelysHumphreys Stockholm 70°C /69° soil temperature is not a problem! Finds new clade / geothermal lineage. & my ?: can you see selected be sweeps at genomic level (&metagenomics soil too) - which needs her discovery of origin of populations #IBC2024

Oh dear, 100,000 disposable cups later, #IBC2024 is contributing unjustifiably to unnecessary pollution. Next time, @Annbot @BotanyOne @WileyGlobal @OUPAcademic sponsor a reusable mug for us all and have coffee urns. Get another location if centre don't agree!

Angela Moles @AngelaMoles1 points out fecundity can matter a lot to adaptation, thinks that extreme climate events may be overemphasized. She also asks why we see plants moving range so much already when there is such a diversity of microhabitats #IBC2024

Angela Moles Rapid evolution is happening, but spp and communities are changing, adapting & going extinct in different ways. Some biomes have gone on ancient past, predicted to go now. Must look forward maximum biodiversity #IBC2024

Soon is Qing Liu, South China Botanical Garden SCBG adding to the complex grass mitochondrial genomes - & showing why, contrasting to chloroplasts & animals, they are +/- useless for phylogeny #IBC2024 in @VorontsovaMS Poaceae Grass Roots A10.08 c. 12.20 bmcplantbiol.biomedc...

Plant responses to climate change beautifully discussed @AngelaMoles1 Species are shifting range, but 37% of species move (anthropocentrically) the wrong way! It's complex. Now asking if movement of some spp will threaten another set of spp - is this the Trolley problem? #IBC2024

Mike Baker shows palaeologs are so important in crops with super Brassica data! The story of plant evolution is the story of polyploidy! #IBC2024 & to my question, yes, polyploids will do even better!