iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 14/09/2026

Didn’t know Clippy had left us. Found his tomb in Toulouse. RIP little guy…

Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 24/08/2026

Just a rainbow. A sign of rain, of hope and diversity. Climate change is a huge challenge, but mankind can make it. If it wants and does what needs to be done. now.

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 20/08/2026

Seems like the Désirée potato variety was produced quite in a rush! 🥔😅 Urgenta X Depesche

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 18/08/2026

Uncountable numbers of turtles 🐢 had to be sacrificed in the process of producing this project. Sorry!

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 06/08/2026

i have found it! The actual physical location of R Studio!

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 30/07/2026

véraison in action 😎 wish you all a very nice day!

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 17/06/2026

My personal comment on the EUs decision on new genomic techniques in crop breeding 🧑‍🌾 #NGT @snsf.ch

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 05/06/2026

We even managed to identify the one autonomous Helitron copy that mobilised the non-autonomous ones. Thanks to a super sensitive method we were also able to detect somatic insertions events in the gigantic wheat genome 😅

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 20/01/2026

Hey USA! Not a single country on this planet likes you anymore (oh, OK, maybe Russia does). I think you should do something about it. And you should do it now before ICE is fully armed. Afterwards it will be too late.

The Planetary Idiot talking at European leaders.

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 16/01/2026

On my governmental computer, @microsoft.com Office takes at least one minute to open a 140kb file! My Atari is faster than that!

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 15/01/2026

Maybe a tip for speakers who tend to have a dry mouth while giving presentations (like me, yeah I am too nervous): what really helps me are Fishermen’s Friend. maybe that helps someone out there…

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 07/01/2026

I absolutely love this card I received from @inrae-france.bsky.social ! "In 2026, let us sow science and harvest solutions!" That should be the core European 🇪🇺 spirit! To boldly go where no one has gone before.

"Face aux crises climatiques, sanitaires et géopolitiques qui menacent le monde et qui impactent l'agriculture, l'alimentation et la forêt, les équipes d'INRAE sont mobilisées pour repousser les frontières de la connaissance et construire avec leurs partenaires les solutions d'un avenir plus juste et durable."
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"Faced with the climate, health and geopolitical crises that threaten the world and impact agriculture, food and forestry, INRAE teams are mobilized to push back the frontiers of knowledge and build with their partners the solutions for a fairer and more sustainable future."

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 02/12/2025

@inrae-france.bsky.social INRAE has a really nice way to celebrate some of its most outstanding researchers and research groups 🥂 « Les lauriers INRAE »

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 02/12/2025

Can someone explain to me why we are still forced to use Microsoft products in the Swiss 🇨🇭 government? Just nothing really works, and that stuff is slow as hell. No way to be productive.

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 23/11/2025

🥔 🌱 Reading about potato breeding I learned: "there has been no genetic gain in potato yield over the last 100 years" 🤯 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Screenshot of this paper: Husain I. Agha, Laura M. Shannon, Peter L. Morrell,
Unloading potatoes: Potato breeding moves forward with only half the genome,
Cell Genomics,
Volume 3, Issue 6, 2023

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 04/11/2025

Horse meets cows at Agroscope close to Zürich.

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 02/11/2025

Since an artisan is a human being they should be called Antiartisan or Antisan…

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 18/10/2025

The one and only GM farmer 👨‍🌾 of Switzerland 🇨🇭

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 18/10/2025

Looks like a perfect day to sow GM* wheat! Some traits we’ll check: yield and resistance to 3 diseases. *GM only if you think chemical mutagenesis produces GMOs that should be regulated exactly like transgenics (plants containing foreign genes).

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 14/10/2025

I still have an functional Atari ST4 🤭 The game here is Bolo. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolo_(B...

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 16/09/2025

Just went to Google Scholar, and found that my work has been cited exactly 7000 times today 🤓🥳 scholar.google.de/citations?us...

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 09/09/2025

As I come to think of it: There's quite some overlap between homeopathy and AI. The more AI dilutes facts and knowledge, the more powerful it becomes. Same quakery approach with immense promesses.

Dr. Doxey from Lucky Luke selling snake oil.

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 18/08/2025

Another day, another botanical garden! Today: Zürich 🤩🪻

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 14/08/2025

Jasmin, smells fantastic! Main ingredient in Chanel No5

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 14/08/2025

Got stuck in Neuchatel today, so I visited the botanical garden. Really enjoyed it! Behind me there’s a plant evolution garden 🤩🌱🌳🌸

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 13/08/2025

Israel has destroyed the Palestinian crop gene bank. 80 local varieties most likely lost for ever.

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 06/08/2025

Funny to see how US media, when they talk about Switzerland 🇨🇭, make fun of our exports by only mentioning chocolate and watches. BY FAR, the main exported products to the US are pharmaceuticals 💊⚕️ $35B vs. $5B (watches). data source: tradingeconomics.com/switzerland/...

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 04/08/2025

Genome editing is dangerous because ⚡AI !!!!. But of course @testbiotech.bsky.social totally forgets to actually publish their findings in a scientific journal or to test in a lab what the language model has proposed. Scared of fact checking, they actually publish fake sequences!!!

"Figure: Overview on technical steps to achieve the design of the insecticidal NGT plants (DNA sequences in the figure represent arbitrary combinations without function)."

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 22/07/2025

Biology is beautiful 🤩 Dragonfly seen in Nyon, Switzerland

shimmering blue dragonfly resting on a leaf, wings half opened.

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 22/07/2025

Seems, according to Microsoft, I’m only 4% here but mostly there wherever that is…

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 21/07/2025

OK, my attempt to grow radishes 🫜 in my garden is a total failure… 😞

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 18/06/2025

At least in Paris it is very clear who’s the boss! translation: street ofthebossofthecity

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 03/06/2025

Update interessant: Le "Bio" pourrait particulièrement beaucoup profiter des NGTs! doi.org/10.1016/j.cr...

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 03/06/2025

Lettre co-signé par Demeter qui vend de l’huile de tournesol OGM (issue de mutagenèse). Oh quelle ironie.. marqué en jaune « riche en acid gras » donc OGM.

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 30/05/2025

Massive criticism against the proposed regulation of novel crop breeding techniques in 🇨🇭 - Nothing will improve for researchers: Like transgenics! - Swiss breeders will not be able to use NBTs. - Trade and breeders rights totally ignored. Those who wrote this proposal obviously have no clue 😞

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 28/05/2025

Pourquoi une régulation si stricte pour une méthode que fait 10'000 fois moins de dégâts dans le génome de la plante que la mutagenèse aléatoire qui elle n'est pas régulé? Cela ne fait aucun sens.

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 23/05/2025

Eh ouaip, ça fait très très mal… institut-artenova.ch/wp-content/u...

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 06/05/2025

Je ne suis pas juriste, mais rien que cette phrase... On ne peut pas privatiser les anciennes variétés. Du n'importe quoi dans un document financé par l'UE.

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 23/04/2025

Always nice to come back from holidays… 😵

Outlook screenshot, 539 unread messages…

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 05/04/2025

Swiss government proposes a "risk-based" approach to novel crop breeding technologies. It makes zero sense: Thousands of mutations by ☢️🧪 = low risk ✅ A single precise mutation by genome editing 🧬 = high risk 🚫 Regulation will only help big breeding companies and kill innovation.

Graph comparing the impacts of different crop breeding methods on the plant DNA. Left: random mutagenesis, causes over 10'000 mutations, crossing; Middle: wide crosses can have drastic effects on plant genomes (e.g. loss of complete chromosomes) Right: Genome editing, causes the waned mutation plus very little additional mutations.
Random mutagenesis is deemed safe, genome editing not.
The weaker the mutagen the tougher the regulation.
(c) Etienne Bucher, @testbiotech: You are NOT allowed to steal my graphics again!

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 04/04/2025

❗🇪🇺 EU is thinking about blocking US patents as a response to the tarifs. My proposition: End the patent on genome editing in crops, make it available for free to everyone in Europe. You can justify it with the #ClimateEmergency that will hit Europe very hard. www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/w...

Dazu könnten weitere Instrumente kommen, über die die EU inzwischen verfügt: Sie könnte US-Anbieter von öffentlichen Aufträgen ausschließen, Patente aussetzen oder US-Digitalkonzerne wie Meta, Google, Apple oder Amazon mit Abgaben belegen.

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 27/03/2025

Some people say that RuBisCO is the most abundant product of life on our planet. I think they are wrong, it is actually cat hair… 🐈

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Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · 27/03/2025

Sounds like Thomson and Thompson to me… en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomson...

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