Excited to share this story in its final form, now published in ACS Synthetic Biology. #PlantBiology #Synbio pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

New pre-print. Biosynthesis of limonene in Marchantia is carried out by a small biosynthetic gene cluster specific to oil body cells #PlantScience www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Happy to share our latest work exploring the impact of transgenesis on the Camelina seed proteome, out today in @plantbiotechj.bsky.social doi.org/10.1111/pbi.... Short 🧵

New preprint out 🌱 We present a new T-DNA vector system for Arabidopsis that supports clean, genomically mapped, single-copy T-DNA insertion with predictable cell-type/conditional gene expression. @mokhalil.bsky.social + Gehring labs biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 🧵1/16

Consensus is wild parsnip!

Samphire in Steart Marshes #AquaticPlants (kinda) #WildFlowerHour @wildflowerhour.bsky.social #Salt

Help me out folks with this one @wildflowerhour.bsky.social is it Alexanders? South West England, coastal cliff. #WildFlowerHour #Seaside not quite #AquaticPlants. #KebleMartin

Shoutout for #WildFlowerHour to @silverpebble2.bsky.social who sent me some absolutely gorgeous cards this week 🌸🌿🌺🌼🌻🌷 @wildflowerhour.bsky.social

Since it's #AquaticPlants let’s include some fab #Seaweed that we work on in the lab too #Ulva #beach #WildFlowerHour 🌱🔬🥼

Here's a comparison of techniques for table-top propagation of the liverwort Marchantia - best model plant for engineering!Trying to properly collate tha last few years of development trials in Cambridge. Adding DIY instructions. https://marchantia.org/technique

Instructions for building the latest Mini-NFT hydroponics system for Marchantia. USB powered pod with self-contained media circulation and LED lighting. Based on GN1/6 kitchen vessel. Larger scale DIY hydroponic systems on the way. https://marchantia.org/mini-nft-hydroponics

I finished the next batch of instructions for DIY construction of 'grow-pods' for simple and improved hydroponic cultivation of Marchantia liverwort plants - needing to adjust for their lack root systems, so using specialised trays and membranes for fast growth (marchantia.org)

There are three different size systems (mini, midi, super) to cope with different scales, up to about a kilogram of fresh weight of liverwort per tray for the super size. Can take plants through the entire life cycle - great for plant spore production.

Marchantia plants grown on a large Super-NFT grow-pod using micro-perforated plastic film to supress algal growth, while rhizoids penetrate the support membrane and feed off nutrients flowing below. Grow healthily for months on a tabletop for spore production (marchantia.org)

Instructions have full assembly details including custom 3D files and details of sources for off-the-shelf components. Also details of background trials at marchantia.org

Also I've pulled together details of the low-cost LED lighting systems that have been integrated into the three different self-contained grow-pods. Might be useful for other plant and algal growing systems. Can be found at Marchantia.org

This is huge. #CleanAirForAll

Discovery of an adhesion GPCR regulating mating in choanoflagellates, by Alain Garcia de las Bayonas & Nicole King. Absolutely stunning work - choano cell biology is going next level www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Summer Spectacular!🌸 View our latest issue: academic.oup.com/pcp/issue/67/6 Stunning cover photo of a dahlia 'Yuino' flower containing bicolor petals caused by naturally occurring RNAi Photo credit: Dr. Toshiyuki Fukuhara, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Japan #PlantScience

All the high fives 🙌 @danielgorelick.bsky.social and @biologyopen.bsky.social ! You took a risk and it’s paying off big! Hopefully the start of a new movement! 👏

How is fertilisation different between flowering plants🌺 and naked-seed plants, like conifers🌳? This illustration has been commissioned by @pyhatanja.bsky.social and Robert Kesälahti and is now freely available on Wikimedia Commons under a CC BY 4.0 licence Link: bit.ly/4w9pyhq 🧪 #SciArt #EduSky

Update: it’s yellow loosestrife 💛🌿 Thanks @darklyadapted.bsky.social

Agrimony and filupendula #wildFlowerHour @wildflowerhour.bsky.social 🤍🌿💛 #NatureReserve

A lone rosebay willowherb amongst filupendula in my local nature reserve. Willow herb is a pioneer plant rather than a true #InvasivePlant though maybe? @wildflowerhour.bsky.social #WildFlowerHour 🌸🤍🌿

Himalayan balsam- too much of it- in my local walk #InvasivePlants #WildFlowerHour @wildflowerhour.bsky.social 🌸🌿

Microbes that have the greatest genomic potential for secondary metabolism tend to be multicellular. Here, we show that signatures of ancestral BGC expansions within 3 bacterial phyla and 2 fungal lineages coincide with origins of complex multicellularity [1/12] 🧵 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I visited Dundee botanical gardens a couple years back. A great collection and a lovely community atmosphere. In one afternoon I chatted to school groups, researchers, gardeners and artists. An institution well worth visiting and support

Our paper on the origin and evolution of phloem, a big part of my PhD work, is out in Current Biology! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Sunburst Finish. It's possible this Marmalade Hoverfly, Episyrphus balteatus, may have flown more than 1,000 miles to sip the Fox-and-cubs (Pilosella aurantiaca), in our #Leicester garden. #Diptera #VC55 #PollinatorPals #Wildflowerhour #macrophotography #macro #OMSystem

Didn’t catch a pollinator but some Marsh Woundwort today is a new find @wildflowerhour.bsky.social #WildFlowerHour 🌸🌱🌿

The summer solstice is not just a calendar entry. It is a signal to all the trees in temperate zones in the north to begin preparation to survive the winter cold. Yes, today, the growing season ends for most trees. Have a look at the trees you walk by. Most of them have probably already set buds.

New review out in Current Biology with colleagues in the Plant Cell Atlas (@plantcellatlas.bsky.social)! We discuss how single-cell genomics is reshaping our understanding of plant cell-type identity and evolution across the Green Lineage. bit.ly/4eAip2Q

The cyanobacterium Acaryochloris marina can photosynthesize using far-red light at the edge of the visible spectrum. A new #ScienceAdvances study uncovers the basis of this system, offering insight into how plant photosynthesis could use longer wavelengths of light. https://scim.ag/43udhqY

#ASPBPlantPhysMonday #ICYMI

#ASPBPlantPhysMonday #ICYMI

And the roads today are also in a state of disrepair #potholes

No churchyard for me but here’s some more local oxeye daisies plus some hazel #WildFlowerHour @wildflowerhour.bsky.social

For liverwort mavens, I've needed to shift our Marchantia resources to a new website (I've reached retirement from academia in Cambridge) - and the plant synthetic biology stuff has moved to https://www.haseloff-lab.info (Now have more time for DIY builds! Updates to come)

#single insert transformation. The problem of multiple inserts lies in your T-DNA 😳 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

New research in Science reveals that the Venus flytrap's snap is triggered by a rapid softening of the epidermal cell walls, uncovering the physical mechanism behind this remarkable movement. Learn more in this week's issue: https://scim.ag/4fXQ9sn

Dynamic microbiome turnover and glycerol‐3‐phosphate‐linked metabolic adjustments underlie resilience to desiccation in intertidal algae Wang et al. nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/XFWWWB...

MacOS Weed

MacOS Salton City

MacOS Ted Kipf Road

macOS Pacific Coast Highway

Our beautiful special issue on plant evolution is out @currentbiology.bsky.social ! www.cell.com/issue/S0960-...

Whichever of the purple dots you look at turns more purple.

I’m late again with my #LawnFlowers for #WildFlowerHour @wildflowerhour.bsky.social but here goes 🌼🌺 #NoMowMay (June) 🧡🤍💛

Water drops