Stage - the three month old colt has a 1.5 Acre pasture surrounded by five foot fencing. Act - go outside and say “that is sweet, the German shepherd and the colt are playing. Waaaiiiitt, the colt is not in the pasture!!!!” Finding - at three months he can cleanly jump five feet. Feeling

Sunset

Batch number 5 for the year. This pot represents about 30 Lbs of paste tomatoes. Crazily that is one plant this year.

a genetics major built by early biochemical geneticists taught us that single alleles were likely to be simultaneously recessive, dominant and additive. Just depends on what you measure. A fxnl enzyme is dominant over the non functional for product, recessive for substrate and additive for protein.

Is it too late for a first day of school picture? He refused to wear the backpack or carry the lunch bale.

Thought ? on translatability/generalizability; If a #secmet has independently evolved dozens of times from ferns to angiosperms (e.g. cyanogenic glucosides). Even by different chemistry. What do we expect to translate from one independent event to another? And why do we or do we not expect that?

Here is Andrew’s obituary, where you can share a tribute or plant a tree in his memory as a way to honor his life 🕊️ www.forestmeadowsfh.com/obituaries/A...

12 weeks old. Growing way too fast as pics are about four weeks apart. Makes me think I need to lift weights to keep up with him. Too ripped for a baby.

We are deeply saddened by the news that Andrew D. Hanson (@adhansonlab.bsky.social) is no longer with us. He was an exceptional scientist, mentor, and leader in multiple fields. He constantly reminded us that over-promising would backfire. Rest in peace, Andrew.

Non functional exons. You mean transposons? Non-functional for who?

Community opinion needed on a debate; Is the following a AI hallucination or the truth? - Plant genomes are well known to have nonfunctional exons hang around intact for millions of years.

Had to look up an old paper to get the doi. It still completely boggles my mind that TWO Nobel prizes have been given for small RNAs and this work wasn't recognized by either. Abstract is literally like "yeah, we found these tiny antisense RNAs and think they're probably causing gene silencing"

Six years ago, I started at the MPIPZ with a head full of ideas. What a journey. I’m thrilled to share that, from Jan 2026, I will be moving to Zurich as a chaired associate professor at the University of Zurich. A new chapter, and plenty of roots still to grow. Can’t wait for the adventure ahead!

New in #GENETICS: @lensinkmariele.bsky.social, @grey-monroe.bsky.social, @spicybotrytis.bsky.social identify an important role of trans-acting loci for transcriptomic plasticity in response to salicylic acid, thereby describing plant adaptation mechanisms to environmental changes. buff.ly/fIAn1eg

Orthogroup analysis shows that very few genes are truly conserved across all plants, vascular or not. So are the important genes really the ones that are conserved? Or are they simply the minimal backbone on which all the important genes function?

15 pounds of tomatoes, 8 pounds of eggplant and a pound of peppers.

I feel like such a baddie there’s a waitlist for my Bayesian Stats grad seminar. Honestly thought it was just going to just be my grad students that I forced to take it.

Finally cooled down enough for Mom and Baby to sleep after a long hot day.

I feel like all the David Brooks and Ross Douthat columns @nytimes.com are basically coalescing around the idea the people are inherently vile at their core unless they have a structure like religion to save them. We can’t expect people to rise above. Talk about nihilist.

Legal game theory; Over past decade +, corporate lawyers started urging settlements rather than trials to minimize the risk of large losses. However, this appears to have taught other lawyers/people that suing, even without basis, has a greater potential for payout. The risk now is in not suing.

We met as science editors for @theplantcell.bsky.social and founded our company to provide science editing for plant biologists, and by plant biologists!

In the final talk, @nancyrhof.bsky.social from @planteditors.bsky.social gave a great talk about effective writing in science—here she is giving the Plant Editors origin story!

So if the overall interaction term, say a G x E, in an Anova is not significant, that means to ignore the post-hoc tests suggesting there is an interaction between groups, correct? No matter if it fits your idea that there must be an interaction?

Wonderful (and humble) essay on mentorship by Brandon Gaut, on occasion of Brandon receiving the inaugural Mentorship Award of @genetics-gsa.bsky.social. I hope this will be widely read! academic.oup.com/genetics/art...

Plant specialized metabolism is reminding me of the Arabidopsis 2010 era. Cloning genes became super easy and the difficulty of true biological function exploded in our face. Cloning pathways is now super easy and the hard part of showing ALL the in planta roles is an oncoming brick wall. #secmet

It is only paranoia if you aren’t being secretly watched! The magpies are going to have a shock if they try for this years persimmons.

The way the AI discourse is gaining strength reminds me of the Finance worlds discussions leading up to 2008. They'd convinced themselves they'd conquered all risk with these new products. It had no defense in logic yet permeated extensively throughout society at huge cost when it proved wrong.

Dang, it’s as if allopolyplody was a completely unknown event.

If you look carefully you will see the wily German Shepherd grazing green pole beans to get some much needed iron in their diet. This is a rare behavior indeed to see in the wild. Many a dog scientist will go their lives without witnessing this unique spectacle of nature. Let us enjoy.

I am thrilled to share the 2nd chapter of my PhD with @adsteinbrenner.bsky.social In collaboration with @tiszapatrick we demonstrated that the LRR-RLP INR is the missing molecular link between caterpillar recognition and predatory wasp recruitment in the field. A thread 1/6

Before this #PlantBio2025 thread closes: two exciting opportunities now open for early-career plant scientists. 1. Plantae Fellows program, apply by Aug 31 plantae.org/2026fellowsa... 2. @theplantcell.bsky.social Assistant Features Editor program, apply by Sep 15. blog.aspb.org/the-plant-ce...

It is with deep sadness that we share that Professor Amy Marshall-Colon passed away over the weekend. Amy was a gifted scientist, generous colleague, and strong advocate for early career faculty. She will be deeply missed by our department and the wider plant biology community.

100% this, and we should really be trying to publish non-sig results too! Also keep in mind that corporations don't publish their findings in academic journals, they get kept in company memos

Or how representative arabidopsis and or other models are...

I think it is a fair point, unless testing some fundamental theory about how networks work is being tested, always feels unsatisfying... But I suppose you could argue if a key regulator has a conserved function it is possible to engineer without properly understanding the process

If you like that content, you’ll like my opinion on bacterial dispersal in phytopathogens pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32278259/

#PlantBio2025 and #Botany2025, if we predominantly focus on testing and studying TFs from omics data do we really learn how systems truly work and how to engineer, breed or apply them?

The first in a coming array of papers looking at the co-transcriptome of 72 Botrytis genotype in 10 different host plants is out. Summary is the pathogen uses a combination of general virulence and host specific plasticity (not new genes) to infect dicots. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🌱 From Plant Biology: Complex PGPR inocula reshape root gene networks and nutrient pathways, driving enhanced shoot growth in Brassica rapa. (K. Nozue, D. J. Kliebenstein, J. N. Maloof) ▶️ onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #PlantBiology #PlantScience

Excited this paper is finally published! We focused on the inner concave surface of LRR RKs to expand bacterial flagellin perception in plants. Selection indicates expanded perception is more common than previously thought. Experiments led by @jerrytli.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A fashion model is created.

If I remember correctly, in the early 2000's when @spicybotrytis.bsky.social and I worked at the same institute, a member of the advisory board said that we should work only on plant systems that are diploid and obligatory outcrossers if our goal is to understand popgen and evolution.

I can’t understand the argument that there are optimal ecological systems. Seems like every system has strengths/weaknesses and it depends on the ?. The ecological purity argument rules out entire sets of ?s. Arabidopsis can ask ?s not possible in Mimulus, clover or switchgrass and vice versa.

Yes!! Sometimes I think that cliche first sentence helps writers get started, but it can then be deleted on revision!

At what evolutionary distance do you expect specialized metabolite enzymes within a pathway will no longer work together? #PlantBio2025 #Botany2025 #secmet

I think we have our hands full. He is already big and muscular at 7 weeks of age. Also likes to watch and plan. This one will push us. Mom is eating nearly 35 pounds of hay and alfalfa per day.

Had some important errands to run before #PlantBio2025 begins this afternoon. Needed to stock up on #Secmet .

Raising a glass of New Glarus Strawberry-Rhubarb beer to you. Cheers! (Sounds cloying but is quite tasty!) newglarusbrewing.com/pages/thumbp...

Man the build up to #Botany2025 is smacking the build up to #PlantBio2025 hard. As a counter, Milwaukee makes a killer manhattan with Amaro

The Dowell Lab is headed to #Botany2025, come check out some of our amazing talks to see what we’ve been up to!