Some people will remember Thing from the Addams Family

Try this excuse if you get breathalyzed in a traffic stop.

Glad to share our latest work on #barley and #climatechange. The heat is definitely on breeding! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

@kevinfolta.bsky.social writes: “𝘛𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘶𝘳𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘧 𝘜.𝘚. 𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘴 𝘪𝘴𝘯’𝘵 𝘢𝘴 𝘦𝘹𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘰𝘤𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘵 𝘜𝘯𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘴𝘪𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘙𝘍𝘒 𝘑𝘳. 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘓𝘺𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘬𝘰 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦, [𝘦.𝘨.] 𝘳𝘦𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘤 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴, 𝘴𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘢𝘭𝘴𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘴, 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩…”

Gene Editing, naturally! Glad to share the results of our survey of consumers and farmers in Finland regarding their views of Gene Editing. The concept of "naturalness" turned out to be important. #geneediting #biotechnology #genomics link.springer.com/article/10.1...

🌱 📢 8th Fascination of Plants Day 2026 is officially launched! Join us by organising interactive events engaging the public around the 18 May 2026 or as a participant. More info: www.plantday18may.org 👉 bit.ly/4oVTuZw #PlantsDay2026 #Plants #PlantScience

A goldenberry (Physalis) with agronomic traits improved by gene editing! At least here in Finland, these delicious and healthful berries are pricey, so easier production would be welcome. nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

💡 EPSO welcomes the provisional agreement reached by the Trilogue on the legislative proposal for regulation of New Genomic Techniques (NGTs) in plants. EPSO offers to contribute on a scientific basis. 🌱 #PlantScience #Biodiversity #Food2030EU #Bioeconomy #LifeSciences 👉 bit.ly/48Mds37

Europe cannot afford to fall behind on innovation! We join 25 EU agri-food organizations urging policymakers to conclude #NGTs trilogue talks now. Science-based rules = resilient crops & global competitiveness. Act today! 🌱 euroseeds.eu/app/uploads/...

🌱📢EPSO wishes to encourage the development of ideas and imaginative thinking in #PlantScience and offers two awards to young scientists to present at the EPSO General Assembly Science Day on 17th June 2026. Submission deadline is 31.1.2026. 👉https://bit.ly/43cbx5Q.

Soon, CDC will be listing protocols for exorcism.

Happy to have been a part of the worldwide effort to assemble a pan-genome and pan-transcriptome for oat! A great cereal crop with lots of health benefits. We hope this resource will advance oat quality improvement, resilience, and sustainability as well as provide a foundation for basic research.

Watson's troubling B-side

Their longevity I've wondered about for a long time. Harder to decipher the lifespan of the Greenland Shark, maybe 500 yr.

A mechanism that I and certainly many others have wondered about has now been revealed.

Happy International Coffee Day. Here is a new EFSA study, but don't lose sleep over it.

Who would have guessed? Why it's worth exploring the various branches of the tree of life.

How about we call genome edited crops "barely mutant"? Seems to be a nice workshop below btw!

The perfect cacio e pepe, how to stop shoe odor, and zebra-stiped cows! arstechnica.com/science/2025...

🫛 SPECIAL ISSUE REVIEW 🫛 Johansson et al. ✍️ Redox-active molecules such as ROS, RNS, and RSS orchestrate legume responses to diverse (a)biotic stresses and symbioses, offering novel strategies to enhance crop resilience in changing environments. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/jxb/... #PlantScience 🧪

Heads up on this one.

Nice to see a genome assembly emerge for this barley wild relative. Hopefully, we'll learn how to improve barley's drought tolerance while maintaining yield.

"I’ve never heard as many colleagues saying things like 'CDC is dead’ as I have today," an agency employee told STAT. www.statnews.com/2025/08/28/c...

I miss the old brand #CDC

Pangenome reveals structural variant-driven variation in expression of in winter oilseed rape. Framework enables population-scale SV-eQTL discovery beyond traditional SNP-based approaches - major advance for functional genomics. Read more here:

New Zealand had some of the most restrictive laws when it came to genetically engineered food crops. This move once again demonstrates how the NZ Government makes Science-based decisions. Take note, European Union! #PlantGMOs #PlantNGTs #PlantScience #Agroculture #Sustainability #PlantBreeding

Really interesting to see this systematic and broad study on an important leaf trait.

The campaign against science by the Trump administration through grant slashing has reached FlyBase. There is an effort to crowd-fund this vital database:

Happy to announce our current scan of the risk environment for NGT (gene editing) in animals, just published today. doi.org/10.2903/j.ef...

Interesting aspect to ABA: the role of poly-ubiquitination and mono-ubiquitination to post-transcriptionally regulate ABA receptors

Summary Table of the massive defunding of biomedical research in the United States www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

DNA virus infections shape transposable elements activity in vitro and in vivo doi.org/10.1101/2024...

Hot off the press: our analysis of the proposed EU limits to NGT1 category of genome editing in light of recent data on genomic diversity. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

This bizarre rejection of health science is not incidental: MAGA represents a raging revolt against the very foundations of modern society which are roundly rejected as illegitimate impositions and a personal affront to the prerogative of the MAGA patriarch to decide what is true and what is real.

Even given possible response bias, this is pretty shockingly high. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Nature reporters' ongoing coverage of Trump 2.0 impacts on science and scientists is collected here: www.nature.com/collections/... Reach me at alexwitze.01 on Signal, or witzescience[at]gmail.com, with tips, feedback, follow-ups, anything we should be covering, etc.

Despite dire predictions, we're not there yet. But it's a cute beast and makes great copy.

This will have far-reaching and negative consequences for everyone. When it comes to pandemics, what goes around certainly comes around. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/26/h...

For a presentation I am giving, I made a wordcloud of the titles of the NIH grants that were canceled. It is clear about the unscientific goals of this administration

If you are a member of the UK or international scientific community, you can sign the open letter from this link. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

"Pressure growing on the Royal Society to expel Musk after more >1000 scientists sign open letter" www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

A warning from Harold Varmus about the consequences of the current American administration's dismantling and hobbling of research as well as public health measures in the US and worldwide. Where is the protest of this? bit.ly/42WGfAE

Difficult to speak Truth to Power when Power tries to gag the speakers. The National Nature Assessment seems to contain facts that Trump would like to suppress. bit.ly/417N8xu

Well, the Freeze has been unfrozen, and grant money will flow for now. The idea was to put Woke to sleep, but instead many researchers woke up, wondering what to do about their impending flight and conference or the reagents they needed for an ongoing experiment. www.bbc.com/news/live/cw...

Heterodichogamy or alternate dioecy, or serial transgenderism, in more common parlance, well that's just nuts! And it's now finally understood. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Certainly gets the creative juices flowing! Simulating 500 million years of evolution with a language model | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Researchers at CDC: no travel, external meetings or communications. Apparently their paymasters believe magical thinking will keep viruses at bay. www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/...

Seen in Helsinki. I knew that viruses self-assemble, but didn't know it was also true for sandwiches. Remarkably, they can do this and experience emotion at the same time.

Cool graphic from KWS on the #GenomeEditing timeline. Impressive how few years passed between the first use of CRISPR/Cas9 in a crop plant (2013) to the first release of an edited crop ( #GABATomato ) (2021). Trad. #PlantBreeding can take decades! 😮 www.kws.com/corp/de/inno... #PlantScience

Seems to include one who published and perished, but no skeletons in the closet.