The lack of bio panels on the NSF events page is disheartening: www.nsf.gov/events/propo... See prior coverage: www.science.org/content/arti... Weird that many non-bio panels continue to exist?

🌿 Applications are open for the Bill Dahl Graduate Student Research Awards (GSRAs), including the J. S. Karling and AJ Harris awards. BSA supports graduate student research in botanical science with these $1,500 awards. Deadline: February 16, 2026. Apply now: botany.org/home/awards/...

Til they have a weaker solution of the eye dilation liquid that they can use for us blue-eyed freaks who remain looking like a panicked cat for hours.

🏵 Check out the latest #AJB Synthesis article, by Haley Branch! 🏵 The sleeping giant needs coffee: Overlooked areas for integrating plant #ecophysiology & evolutionary biology doi.org/10.1002/ajb2... #botany #plantscience #ecology #evolution

Monday is off to a real Monday start I see.

PBS kids is sending me

Two days after Trump posts a racist video, he now attacks Bad Bunny: "Nobody understands a word this guy is saying." He adds: "There is nothing inspirational about this mess." FYI: The billboard behind Bad Bunny read: "The only thing more powerful than hate is love." #SuperBowl

My parents didn’t have power for three months and my mom drank water out of a jug that she filled from a stream and my dad ate breadfruit that fell off his trees and they’re white and have money

There are a lot of people who are going to complain about being unfairly vilified by that halftime show and it's because they know in their hearts they're on Team Hate.

It was transforming the biggest NFL stage in the world into a sugar cane plantation that did it for me. Like, the multiple layers of turning an American icon into a plantation and highlighting the history of exploitation of Black and Brown bodies by the NFL and American colonialism simultaneously?

If you were hoping for some sort of overt political statement: see the literal plantation Benito created to perform in.

Benito is a threat b/c he makes art so alluring and enjoyable you want to understand everything about it and then you end up learning about sugar and slavery and colonialism and the Taínos and Hawaii and then you probably have some thoughts of your own, and that's why art is powerful and dangerous

OK "god bless america" and then naming every country in the americas from south to north is absolute king shit

Bad Bunny has more rushing yards than either team so far

It's music video-level production (the camera work alone!), and yet somehow they're filming it live.

Why am I crying at the Redfin ad

New paper by my lab! PhD student @fallonmeng.bsky.social set out to use whole genome sequencing of Spotted Lanternfly from China & the US to better understand the invasion... and discovered that adapting to the city may be the key to their invasive success! royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

Racism

Do you work in agriculture and want to learn about pollinators? Join us this spring for the Pollinator Steward Certification workshop! We'll have great presentations and a chance to network with other Illinoisans in ag. Go register at www.pollinator.org/wingspan/ats... to secure your spot! 🐝 🌻

Why should we fight to fund the NSF and NIH when they steal public money to give to their cronies? The review process is no longer fair and we can't pretend it is under this regime.

Wait so is work cancelled so we can watch the olympics or?

If the Super Bowl isn’t your cup of tea, our tenth-annual photo collection of superb owls just might be. Take a look at these magnificent birds via The Atlantic Photo:

Dunno who needs to know this, but you can fit 10' (1/2" diameter) PVC pipes in a Subaru forester. You're welcome.

Lord grant me the confidence of a dog who rearranges all the blankets on a freshly made bed with clean sheets.

NYT confirming MS NOW reporting: Prosecutors began investigating Renee Good's killing, then Washington told them to stop. Federal prosecutors had a warrant to collect evidence from Good's vehicle, but Trump leaders said to drop it. About a dozen prosecutors have since departed.

Minneapolis: A protester near the Whipple Federal building lies on the ground bleeding after being thrown to the ground by Minnesota State Patrol... more to come at VisuNews.Substack.com and Patreon.com/ZDRoberts

ICE has grabbed so many people from their vehicles that there are abandoned cars across Minnesota. This tow truck driver returns the cars for free as a public service, and he’s been getting death threats. They hate the helpers. Which is why must keep helping.

Nominations are open for the 2026 BSA Young Botanist Awards! 🌿 Recognize an outstanding graduating senior in botanical science and introduce them to the global BSA community. Deadline: April 1, 2026. For more information, visit: botany.org/home/awards/... #BSAStudentAwards

Still no answers!

We’re excited to share the Pan-genomes Doorstep Meeting @ #PEQG26! Join this 3-hour workshop on evolutionary applications of pangenomics, covering construction, analysis, phylogenetics, annotation & graph QC. Register separately or as an add-on to PEQG: genetics-gsa.org/peqg-2026/do...

ITS ALIVE?!

BOTANY 2026 abstract submission is open!!! @botsocamerica.bsky.social

My grad student, who got RWR and appealed, got an email from GRFP program today that said "Your application was screened by NSF program officers with expertise in your proposed field of study and was determined to be ineligible according to the solicitation requirements." No details were given. 😡

Reposting again because according to Reddit threads, another round of RWR emails went out today.

After a >1 yr hiatus, the #fern tree of life (FTOL) #phylogeny is back with another update! 🌿 🌏 🧬 For the first time including >1,000 whole plastomes and >6,000 fern species! Available at fernphy.github.io/downloads.html

Man everything on instagram is 3000% funnier at 11:30 pm on a Monday night.

NSF GRFP applicants (and mentors): Was your application Returned Without Review and deemed ineligible despite fitting in the allowed topics? 1) Write NSF 2) Write your Congressperson 3) CC us at [email protected] so we can compile + follow up Details and template at grant-witness.us/grfp-letter

everything is bad but the shortbread I made is super good so there's that.

Okay! This has already inspired a bunch of DMs, so I made a page on the website. If you have 50,000+ Skymiles and would be willing to book flights to get someone home, please fill this out.

4 federal agents pull over an elderly US citizen for the suspected crime of being brown, break her car window, throw her to the ground, then drive off after they find her US Passport in her purse. The Salem Police, when called, say there’s nothing they can do. www.salemreporter.com/2026/01/31/u...

Write a couple hundred words about myself? No thanks, I'd rather clear snow from the grass for no reason.

ICYMI, Rice University students have developed a free online map to track ICE activity throughout the country. Find it here: www.icemap.dev. Gift link to @houstonchronicle.com story about it: www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston...

interested to learn what “at my direction” means because it sounds like “without a warrant”

These are all Black people. The regime is betting that you wont care Jamael & Trahern the way you care about Alex & Renée

Please if you know of others being returned without review let us know! No clear pattern that I can tell. Fwiw my student sent an appeal to email listed in rejection message and got a (form) response that their app was being further evaluated.

Calling all OrthoFinder users! We’ve just released GLADE, a tool to infer gene gains, losses, duplications, and ancestral genomes across a phylogeny. GLADE runs directly on OrthoFinder results. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... github.com/lauriebelch/... (1/10)

A federal judge, in a published order, so very much on the record: “ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.”

This is ... interesting, considering I got not one but two emails from NSF soliciting ecologists as GRFP reviewers

Anyone dealt with challenging an "Ineligible" determination on a GRFP proposal? A student's proposed was DQ'ed stating: "Applicants must select research in eligible STEM or STEM education fields." However, Ecology is clearly listed in the solicitation. www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo... Any wisdom?

Grad student in lab just had their GRFP returned without review. But their proposal is not on ag/crops/health. What gives?? 😡