New preprint on pop #genomics of #spittlebug—the main insect vector of Xylella, the bacterium that has ravaged olive groves in southern Italy 🇮🇹 🫒 Take-home: problematic insect vector may be less widespread than initially thought—important implications for disease control 💥 👇

🍄 RESEARCH 🍄 Tue1, a fungal effector belonging to the structurally conserved Tin2-fold effector family widespread among smut fungi, suppresses plant jasmonate signalling by targeting JAZ10, showing diversified modes of action in this family- Gul et al. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/jxb/... #PlantScience 🧪

Another exciting preprint! Two additional HMA-TKP sensors from wheat and barley, swapping HMAs can confer recognition specificity. Evo analyses supporting HMA-TKP has differentiated to recognize different effectors through HMA diversification. other links below. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Bob was incredible. I spoke with him a week before he passed and all he wanted to talk about was his plans for teaching in the Spring. He was an amazing scientist and pushed for teaching excellence in the department at every meeting. He will be sorely missed. newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/in-m...

Excited to share our #plantimmunity preprint on engineering cereal TKPs www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... A short thread below 👇

Tandem Kinases containing HMA domains can be engineered to sense additional effectors. Parallels with NLR HMA engineering and highlights the versatility of this interesting integrated domain. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

NSF plans to streamline merit review to heal self-inflicted staffing wound www.science.org/content/arti...

UC Davis research is at risk. The federal government - its top funder - is pulling and threatening key grants, putting life-changing innovations in medicine and tech in jeopardy. ucdav.is/3KZr1Ej #FromLabsToLives

Two researchers at UC Davis have been awarded a VinFuture Prize in recognition of their work developing self-cloning crops, a breakthrough for sustainable agriculture. Read more: ucdav.is/4oJ41Hx

Plant Com Dec 2025 issue online 🎉Focus Issue on Peptides and Receptor-like Kinases🎉Cover story: A small peptide APP3-14 disrupts pathogen–insect mutualism by modulating plant MYC2-mediated olfactory defense. cell.com/plant-commun...

Just because you can do a good job at something doesn’t mean you should agree to do it.

UF Biology is searching for an Asst Prof in Evolution, Ecology of Infectious Disease - spread the word! @ufresearch.bsky.social @ufgeog.bsky.social @sse-evolution.bsky.social explore.jobs.ufl.edu/en-us/job/53...

Please RT‼️ #TenureTrack position @zmbh.uni-heidelberg.de one of the best #proteostasis research centres in the world. www.nature.com/naturecareer...

🚀 PhD opportunity! Join us (@pierrebuscaill.bsky.social & @chofski.bsky.social) in Bristol 🌱✨ Design, test & model synthetic promoters in Nicotiana benthamiana, focusing on plant immunity. Apply now! 🔗 www.findaphd.com/phds/project... #PlantSci #SyntheticBiology #PhD #PlantBioDesign #BristolUni

Trump used his press briefing to unleash one of the most overtly racist rants ever delivered by an American president. Hate is a reflection of personal insecurity and weakness. Can he even find Somalia on a map? Of course this leads to safety concerns for Somalis. This reality show is exhausting.

@charisramsing.bsky.social gave a great seminar on Clavibacter for UC Davis’ Plant Pathology Department today. New insights into tomato colonization and effector recognition. #MPMI

Targeting T-DNA to a specific locus using CRISPR From: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

"Leaf It to Science: Uncovering Plant Immune Systems Through Technological Advances Open Access" Reflections on Career, #PlantScience and #PlantImmunity by Xinnian Dong academic.oup.com/plphys/advan...

And next up we have @yichangsung.bsky.social from @gittacoaker.bsky.social lab talking about tandem kinases … #strompath25

CRISPR-Cas–mediated heritable chromosome fusions in Arabidopsis | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Very nice work from Holger Puchta & colleagues

My son has inherited my organization skills in various ways. He typed and made a pdf for his cousin for easy, healthy college meals. Daughter: they aren’t making that bro.

🌻 Sharing this preprint where we assembled 3 new chromosome-level genomes, including the first for Asteraceae's South American sister Calyceraceae! Asteraceae uses all the tricks when it comes to being the most ecologically successful family of flowering plants. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Enhancing NLR activation by endophytes carrying recognized effectors that are expressed in the presence of ROS. #plantimmunity www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...

A lettuce receptor-like kinase recognizes the highly conserved heptapeptide motif within microbial NEP1-like proteins https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.10.687460v1

Switzerland is joining Horizon Europe! We are uniting two research powerhouses. For cutting-edge innovation that will boost our energy security, digital transformation, health and so much more. Today is a good day for science, and for our EU-Switzerland partnership.

Faculty got a standard of living increase from the University of California this month. I used mine to donate to the Sacramento Food Bank, because the majority of politicians in the US do not want to feed those in need. www.sacramentofoodbank.org

"If it pleases the court, our position is that the poor people should go hungry"

So my mom was in charge of the surveillance system?

Cool new paper on receptor specificity. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

USDA issued the following statement today, AFRI deadlines extended: www.nifa.usda.gov/grants/progr...

Please register for BAPG at Stanford 12/6, especially if you want to give a talk or a poster. The deadline is Nov 16. bapg2025.github.io/bapg2025stan... And please reshare on bsky!

“I wish Andrew Cuomo the best in private life” - Mamdani’s victory speech

Long lines on UC campus on Nor and So Cal for the special election on #prop50. Ballot called literally 1 second after the polls closed. A blowout. It’s a yes. Voters are mad.

🧬🌱Research Specialist Position Open🌱🧬 -Please spread the words HHMI, UT Austin. NGS-based analyses/single cell biology to investigate environmental and hormonal control of plant stem cell differentiation. Requires both wet lab and bioinformatic skills. hhmi.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Extern...

Beautiful work by Ingrid Berenice Sanchez Carrillo on the in situ structure of the Arabidopsis nuclear pore complex. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Happy Halloween

🚀 New preprint! We introduce K-PROB, a k-mer–based Bayesian framework that mines pangenomic promoter and expression diversity to predict cis-regulatory elements driving gene expression variation in crops 🌽🌱 🔗 biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.27.684862v1 #Genomics #GeneRegulation #Maize #Soybean

Sunset was cooperating during my run but not my dog.

🌱From Nature Communications: A newly cloned resistance gene, Lr.ace-4A/Lr30, provides near-immunity to leaf rust in durum wheat, offering a powerful tool for future wheat breeding. (Jorge Dubcovsky) ▶️ www.nature.com/articles/s41... #PlantScience

Come join us in Knoxville! The Dept. of Microbiology 🧫🦠 at the University of Tennessee is hiring 2 Assistant Professors (tenure track, 9-month appt.). Microbial Drivers of Chronic Disease: apply.interfolio.com/173153Quantitative Microbe-Plant-Environment Interactions: apply.interfolio.com/173345

Hey Yaniv Brandvain is not on Bluesky but his most recent biostats ebook is live ybrandvain.github.io/biostats/. His stats resources have been so helpful to me as I develop my own stats course, so check it out. Github repo here: github.com/ybrandvain/b...

Lab postdoc appreciation lunch

Nice! I was there last weekend for the waves and this one I stayed home to join a local protest.

NYPD announces that zero arrests were made at the massive No Kings protests today after Republicans spent days claiming the protestors are violent terrorists.

An astonishingly large crowd! Chicago

#NoKings Davis, CA

I think there is nothing to gain by engaging with bad actors. Block and spend energy elsewhere. I’m looking forward to some nice live music tonight and tomorrow is a lovely day for a protest.

We have a bunch of new job ads out @arcadiascience.com. If you haven’t checked them out, take a look! www.arcadiascience.com/careers