Super stimulating talk by Olivier Hamant from @rdplab.bsky.social on the tradeoff between efficiency and systemic robustness in biology and beyond. And on how we define societal progress.

The 4th congress on strigolactone research will take place 5-8 October this year in beautiful Paris! Early bird registration extended until April 30. So, just go for it! ics2026.sciencesconf.org

After years of preparation, Artemis II has launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, sending NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen on humanity’s first crewed mission beyond low Earth orbit in over 50 years. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti2C...

Our Review "Development, Anatomy and Integrated Function of Grass Leaf Veins and Graminoid Stomata" is out doi.org/10.1146/annu... Alec Baird and I discuss the development and function of the anatomical structures that regulate water supply (leaf veins) and water demand (stomata) in the grass leaf.

Universität Heidelberg verteidigt Status als Exzellenzuniversität – Rektorin Frauke Melchior: „Großartige Gemeinschaftsleistung hat zum Erfolg geführt“ www.uni-heidelberg.de/de/newsroom/... #universität #heidelberg #uniheidelberg #Exzellenzstrategie #ExStra

Anni Zhang (from @thomasgreb.bsky.social lab) takes us to the green side of development by investigating how "Transcriptional repression of auxin signaling by SMXL5 ensures robust phloem cell fate specification" in arabidopsis #GfE2026

Kick-off meeting of our GreenRobust cluster of excellence last week. Exciting times ahead for plant sciences by bringing together an extraordinary bunch of enthusiastic scientists and human beings!

Join us at the #SEBconference Florence 2026 to discuss #Plant Robustness! 🌱🔥 @kaspervangelderen.bsky.social and I are organising the P12 session "Plant robustness from molecules to ecosystems" with the support of @greenrobust.de Check the program and submit your abstract by March 6th! 👇

our cluster is searching for a technical assistant for supporting joint plant phenotyping experiments to be carried out at the University of Hohenheim www.uni-hohenheim.de/en/job-openi...

Postdoctoral position in Forest Genetics at @uni-freiburg.de with a focus on local adaptation and/or stress reaction of trees. The position combines research and teaching (4 SWS), and offers the opportunity to develop an independent research profile (4+ years).

Our preprint on the first genome-scale resource for the tuber crop T. tuberosum is now online. Thanks to my co-authors and everyone involved. @cosheidelberg.bsky.social | @greenrobust.de | @klaus-tschira-stiftung.de | @gso-forresearchers.bsky.social

Registrations now open for #SLS26 Sainsbury Laboratory Symposium 2026 in Cambridge, UK — Shaping Life: Mechanisms of Morphogenesis! Join us explore how cellular, genetic & mechanical forces sculpt plant form 📅 22–24 Sept 2026 In-person + livestream Limited fee waivers www.slcu.cam.ac.uk/sls #plantsi

Cool story from @meristemania.bsky.social lab on growth-defense tradeoff at the shoot apical meristem www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Two days of stimulating discussions with colleagues from @rdplab.bsky.social and @igflyon.bsky.social about science and life. Thanks for all the hospitality and engagement!

Today is the kick start of our @igflyon.bsky.social @cosheidelberg.bsky.social @rdplab.bsky.social common 2-day retreat in Lyon, @ensdelyon.bsky.social ! Very diverse and exciting talks going from plants, algae to animals!

Our cluster of Excellence GreenRobust is looking for a scientific coordinator located at Heidelberg University. Please spread the word! www.academics.com/jobs/scienti...

It's that time of the month again for our featured #preprint list for December ⬇️ Welcome to our monthly trawl for developmental and stem cell biology (and related) preprints. thenode.biologists.com/december-in-...

www.wur.nl/en/vacancy/f... Become our new colleague (and next door neighbor) and lead a chair/group/department of Biophysics at Wageningen University. Reach out to me for info and please spread!!!

Happy to present our latest: Evolutionary adaptations to the hormonal regulation of vascular tissue development | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/.... Work by Wei Xiao and funded by @erc.europa.eu

Stimulating visit of students from Seoul National University (SNU) at COS, IMSEAM and central research facilities this week in the context of their Global Leadership Program. Exciting case of international student exchange @uniheidelberg.bsky.social

It's finally out!... Using single-cell and spatial transcriptome data, and data imputation, we created BARVISTA, a website able to perform almost genome-wide information on gene expression profiles at single-cell resolution in barley spikes! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Not that this passes without being noticed: The GreenRobust cluster of excellence is officially alive since Jan 1, 2026! Looking forward to at least seven years of exciting science in the field of plant ecology, molecular biology, agriculture and the combination of all these fields. Stay tuned!

Did you ever wonder how a dividing cambium cell looks like and what determines its striking regular division? Xiomin Liu, PhD student in the lab, found out in a heroic histological approach. Fruitful collaboration with the group of Sabine Müller (@phragmoplast.bsky.social) doi.org/10.64898/202...

📣 Save the date! The GfE Meeting 2026 is coming to Potsdam 🇩🇪🌱 ✨ Four outstanding keynote speakers (Hans Clevers, Isabel Fariñas, Thomas Bosch, Frank Bradke) ✨ 🏅 Celebration of the Klaus Sander, Hilde Mangold, and José Campos-Ortega Awards 🏅 👉 www.uni-potsdam.de/en/gfe-meeti...

A very nice and skillful work by Agata Burian and colleagues characterizing the development of vascular strands around the Arabidopsis shoot apex: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Today’s @cosheidelberg.bsky.social seminar is on 🍃 given by @hildenelissen.bsky.social from @psb-vib.bsky.social Really cool work all the way from mechanistic science to translation!!!

A light-induced apical auxin signalling minimum marks the site of organogenesis and de novo meristem formation in Marchantia sporelings (now peer-reviewed): authors.elsevier.com/a/1mDc83QW8S...

New preprint! SOSEKI polarity proteins are mechanoresponsive integrators linking growth and tissue mechanics during lateral root formation. Their polarity marks growth boundaries and reorganises in response to mechanical alterations —reshaping how we think about axis formation. tinyurl.com/28p7af2w

We’ve built this virtual plant scientist PlantScience.ai to grow alongside human researchers🌿. It thinks like an expert, cites like a scholar, and never stops learning. Come and have a chat with it! @yiliangding.bsky.social @johninnescentre.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Our paper comparing stomata of the three annual Brachypodium species is out 🌾 bmcplantbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.... A great collaborative effort between @lbmountain.bsky.social, & our friends at University of Silesia (Alexander Betekhtin and Anna Milewska-Hendel). Funded by @dfg.de and NAWA

People: "Things used to be better." Scientist: "When did it start getting worse?" People: "When I was born." From "The illusion of moral decline" by Adam Mastroianni. shorturl.at/FFEDV

... and a scientific coordinator for experiments of the "Plant Perturbation Atlas" within our cluster www.uni-hohenheim.de/en/job-openi...

... a computer scientist... www.uni-hohenheim.de/en/job-openi...

Another GreenRobust-related Job opening: The university of Hohenheim is looking for a Data Steward in Research Data Management www.uni-hohenheim.de/en/job-openi...

Please spread - GreenRobust is advertising its first position! We are looking for an IT engineer (full time, permanent) located at @cosheidelberg.bsky.social to support our IT infrastructure and data management: adb.zuv.uni-heidelberg.de/info/INFO_FD...

How meristems shape plant architecture in cereals—Cereal Stem Cell Systems (CSCS) Consortium (Thomas Dresselhaus , Martina Balboni , Lea Berg , Anika Dolata , Frank Hochholdinger , et al) doi.org/10.1093/plce... #PlantScience

How plants sense injury in their barrier tissue, periderm? Painstakingly detailed and amazing work by post doc Hiroyuki Iida shows that wounding is sensed by the diffusion of two gases: ethylene and oxygen. @treebiocoe.bsky.social‬ @erc.europa.eu‬ 1/x 🧵 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The Cereal Stem Cell Systems Consortium published a comprehensive review in Plant Cell on how meristems shape cereal architecture. If you are not a fan of cereals except for breakfast, your teaching will still benefit from the amazing figures! ‪@cerealcell.bsky.social‬ tinyurl.com/32a74xpd

Starting the scientific program of #ICAR2025 with an amazing keynote by Jane Parker @parkergroup.bsky.social on the structural basis of plant immunity! Looking forward to 5 days of fantastic Arabidopsis and plant science at the #Bijlokesite in Ghent!

Kick off Vascular Development satellite meeting by @bertderybel.bsky.social. #icar2025

Warming up to #ICAR2025 🌱with two days of cool vascular science at our Vascular Development satellite meeting at @psb-vib.bsky.social.

The GreenRobust cluster of Excellence is now live on Bluesky @greenrobust.de Follow to be informed of the great things coming up 🌱

Since today, the GreenRobust Cluster of excellence is indeed alive: greenrobust.de! Pure joy in light of this team achievement!

Wonderful collaboration with the Wolf, Greb and Prevedel labs!

Our study on the effect of strigolactone signaling on vessel formation and water usage is now peer reviewed: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Great achievement of Jiao Zhao, Dongbo Shi, Kiara Kaeufer, and everybody involved!

If you would like to understand how difficult it is to annotate mobile mRNAs using SNPS read this. www.nature.com/articles/s41... Consider important suggestions/controls: homografts & heterografts, use barcoded reads, minimise RT-PCRs, have a reliable annotated/high quality genome sequence .. etc

**UPCOMING SPECIAL ISSUE** Molecular Coding of Specificity in Plant Processes Editors: Julien Gronnier, Ruth Großeholz, Klaus Harter & @lauraragni.bsky.social Deadline: 30th Sept '25 Manuscripts welcomed, please contact us (bit.ly/JXBissues) #JXBspecialissues 🌱 🌿 🧪 #plantscience (1/2)

Fantastic to see that @pascalhunziker.bsky.social, postdoc in the lab, is on his way to initiate his own research line with the help of the @klaus-tschira-stiftung.de: Exploring the potential of mashua as a sustainable staple food crop. www.cos.uni-heidelberg.de/en/research-...

It's out! Detailed transcriptome atlas of mature Arabidopsis root undergoing secondary growth. Fantastic work by Munan Lyu and Hiroyuki Iida + other lab members, wonderful collab with @bertderybel.bsky.social lab on the scRNAseq analysis. @treebiocoe.bsky.social 1/x www.nature.com/articles/s41...