Latest review from our lab lead by the amazing Emilia Pierce!

🔬🍀🎉 I am happy and excited to share that graduate student, @ohazel.bsky.social Olivia's first author research article is published now @newphyt.bsky.social We are grateful to editor, reviewers, and @newphyt.bsky.social to help us to improve the story nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

We are excited to announce the Plant Biomechanics Webinar Series 2025! 🗓 Webinar #1: Thursday, 25 September 2025 🕑 Time: 14.00 – 15.40 (UTC+7) 🎙 Speakers: Yamamoto M. Matsuo-Ueda R. Noviandi G.I. Hutabarat 📝 Registration: ugm.id/PBMweb1

We learned a lot about plant cell wall mechanics by stretching the Arabidopsis epidermis. Now published in ‪@natcomms.nature.com‬ Fibrous network nature of plant cell walls enables tunable mechanics for development doi.org/10.1038/s414...

Excited for today’s #STLPlantFam25 Plant Science Family Reunion hosted by @39northstl.bsky.social. The joy of connecting with the STL plant fam is indescribable.

It was such an honor to coordinate this plenary! So much amazing science happening in Plant Biomechanics. Thanks to @radinbio.bsky.social, @geitmannlab.bsky.social, Naomi Nakayama, and Frank Telewski for sharing their work! #PlantBio2025

PCA Member Ivan Radin presented this morning at the 2025 ASPB Conference with his talk on "Evolution of Organellar Mechanosensing." #PlantBio2025 @radinbio.bsky.social

ASPB Fellow Anja Geitmann presents "From microstructural features to macroscopic traits" exploring her lab's work to understand the hierarchical architectural concepts underpinning metabolic processes. @geitmannlab.bsky.social #plantscience #PlantBio2025

Loved Naomi Nakayama’s talk-truly original research! #PlantBio2025

#PlantBio2025 I am excited for my awesome grad student, Olivia @ohazel.bsky.social from @science.ubc.ca @ubcbotany.bsky.social presenting today at ASPB meeting in the poster session (unnumbered section). Here is Olivia's 1st author preprint: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

We @ohazel.bsky.social @jessicaa-orr.bsky.social arrived in Wisconsin to attend the ASPB meeting. We are off to a great start here and had a great time hanging out with Erin @erinsparks.bsky.social today. Thanks Erin for making the time.

I'm off to ASPB #PlantBio2025 tomorrow, with a poster and talk on using X-ray imaging in Plant Biology. New soybean imaging to share, like this fly-through animation of the meristematic region from an XRM scan. @danforthcenter.bsky.social @zeiss-microscopy.bsky.social

Congratulations @kcox-bioguy.bsky.social for your ASPB award. Well deserved! #PlantBio2025

The lab used our mutagen of choice, Ethyl methanesulfonate, and sequencing of somatic sectors to do some forward genetics in sorghum. Additional alleles in one generation to find and validate the gene! Something old, something new... @genetics-gsa.bsky.social academic.oup.com/genetics/art...

New data from the Bob Schmitz lab (Marand 2025) on cell type-specific cis-regulation in maize! This study, in @science.org, reveals how DNA changes impact expression and maize traits. Explore the 176 new tracks on the browser under Epigenetics and DNA binding. ➡️ www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🚨It's here!🚨 The Underground Journal Launched Today! @lindzeamays.bsky.social is our first featured artist! Sign up to learn more about Lindsay's work as a science illustrator. We are already accepting submissions for the next issue! So excited to see what you all create! #sciart #scicomm

Make your own maize mutants! Raj Khangura, Norman Best and I contributed maize pollen and seed EMS mutagenesis protocols for the new maize handbook! Updated practices 1/n cshprotocols.cshlp.org/content/earl... cshprotocols.cshlp.org/content/earl... cshprotocols.cshlp.org/content/earl...

Reason number 4,517 (yes I'm counting) why @maizegdb.bsky.social is so awesome and we're so lucky as a community to have these folks. Also a great example of maize community sharing. UNPUBLISHED data already up on the community database showing conservation scores across the maize genome.

Thrilled that @10xgenomics.bsky.social is sponsoring the 6th Interdisciplinary #Plant Group Root (IPG) #Biology Symposium at Mizzou! May 20-23, 2025 IPG is a community of researchers at at MU who are pursuing novel ideas in the field of plant biology! link below! ipg.missouri.edu/symposium/in...

📣 #PlantBio2025 Plenary: Biomechanics.🌱 Learn more and register now! buff.ly/eAQJjVe 👉Advanced rates end June 10! Hurry and register soon for the best savings on the event you don’t want to miss. buff.ly/dtqtnUX #PlantScience

(1/15) We are happy to share the recent preprint from the lab, in a collaboration with Erin Sparks @erinsparks.bsky.social and Norman Best. This story is focused on cell division and auxin in presence of one of the toxic metals, lead (Pb). www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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🌱🦠👩🏾‍🔬 Check out Shanice and her awesome work!

Plant Science Research Weekly -- Firmly grounded: root system stiffness and plant mechanics (Journal of Experimental Botany) (Summary by Irene I. Ikiriko) buff.ly/HBp5OK5 #PlantaePSRW

(1/17) We are excited to share the Ashraf and Gallagher labs collaboration on cell cycle regulation during environmental stress recovery in Arabidopsis, Brachypodium, and ryegrass.

Latest paper from @philcarella.bsky.social lab! Pseudomonas viridiflava as a naturally occurring pathogens of Marchantia. ▶️ T3SS matters ▶️ conserved effectors for infection in angio and Marchantia www.cell.com/current-biol...

The 2025 maize genetics meeting is over. Looking forward to having the 2026 maize meeting from Feb 26 to March 1 in Cologne (Köln), Germany 🇩🇪. Please already mark your calendars. #MGM2025 > #MGM2026.

Excited that this paper from my group is now out! 🥳 congrats to all the authors.

We’re proud to announce a new podcast, Leaf it to Us, hosted by Nora Spurling and Aly Baumgartner! As a special preview, the pilot episode and its accompanying bonus episode are both now out on the Common Descent podcast feed! Take a listen and let us know what you think!

Thank you Katie! I’m beyond honored to receive this award from a community that has welcomed me with open arms and endless seed supplies. 🥰🌽

Sparks Lab at the Maize Meeting 2025!

Nearing 400 members on our Zeavolution slack! Want to interact with other members of the maize genetics community? We have a weekly webinar on maize diversity/evolution as well. DM me and I'll share a link to join the slack.

Some of my postdoc work has been "exposed" today in @theplantjournal.bsky.social! 😁🎉🔬 We developed ExPOSE - a method to perform expansion microscopy in plant protoplast systems. Here's a quick🧵of the details: @meter76.bsky.social @lily-oconnor.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Its Maize Genetics Meeting week!!!!! 🌽🥳

We are hiring! Are you interested in lateral root development and the cellular processes that accommodate these newly formed organs? If yes, apply! We are recruiting a Post-doc (from May 2025) and a PhD student (from September 2025). www.unine.ch/lbmc/jobs/

this website shows you how many jobs NIH funding creates for your state along with the overall economic activity generated www.unitedformedicalresearch.org/nih-in-your-...

Threats to government support for scientific research cause ripple effects in the scientific community. Read more: www.danforthcenter.org/news/st-loui...

just stumbled on a real jaw-dropper of a line in an essay -- “The corollary of being interested in a great range of things is to have sympathy with a great range of outlooks” -- and that, my friends, is why reading is so important.

My occasional reminder to folks on tenure and promotion committees that there will be a cohort of people whose early careers were defined entirely by the pandemic and *waves vaguely* this nonsense, and it *will* impact their productivity. It can't not.

We hope you join us for the 2025 NAPPN Annual Conference taking place Feb. 25th to 27th, 2025! This year, the meeting looks a little different in structure, with NAPPN hosting a virtual conference and several regional Hubs hosting additional in-person events www.plantphenotyping.org/conference-h...

Very excited for this session! Join us in Milwaukee next July!

Delighted to announce the 18th #FASEB Mechanisms of Plants Development will take place Aug 24-28th. ‼️ Register before June 29th → tinyurl.com/24fsjq6a 🌱 🎁 Vote for the conference image by Jan 31st → tinyurl.com/2872w6vm The poster & speakers lineup will be announced in early Feb. Spread the word!

Ditto but due to the sheer number of review requests I get in December! Submit by November or wait until next year!

📜 Update on the Structure and Regulated Biosynthesis of the Apoplastic Polymers Cutin and Suberin 🧑‍🔬 Dylan K Kosma, José Graca, Isabel Molina 📙 @plantphys.bsky.social 🔗 academic.oup.com/plphys/advan... #️⃣ #PlantScience #Suberin #Cutin #PlantPhysiology

Friends don't let friends make bad graphs repo has been updated! Friends don't let friends use histogram for small sample sizes. Bin numbers affect the appearance of histograms, thus not robust to small (and modest sample sizes). They stabilize w/ large sample sizes. github.com/cxli233/Frie...

The second Plant Cell Identity webinar by PCA is coming next Tuesday (10th December)! It will be my pleasure the moderate the exciting talks from @rachelmshahan.bsky.social and Geoff Schiebinger. If you haven't signed up for the series yet, you can do so here: bit.ly/PCAPCI_Webinar

Proud to share our new @plantphys.bsky.social review exploring the anatomical and molecular basis for root adaptations to the environment. Prashanth Ramachandran and Andrea Ramirez detail cell types and pathways that help plants stay resilient in a changing world. academic.oup.com/plphys/advan...

I am so excited to share Dr. C Manzano’s work: she demonstrates the developmental timeline, function and genetic regulation of the polar lignin cap in the tomato root. It functions as a distinct intercellular barrier from the Casparian strip and is repressed in inner layers. rdcu.be/d10Pd