iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Cool new work from @thanvisrikant.bsky.social & @kbomblies.bsky.social: Chromosomes in #Arabidopsis thaliana neo-polyploids break preferentially at fragile sites that correspond to ancient genome rearrangements #plantscience www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Detection and analyses of aneuploidies in neo-tetraploid A. thaliana. (A) Schematic
representation of how neo-tetraploid F1 were generated through reciprocal crossing of Col-0 and
Ler neo-tetraploid inbreds. See Figure S1A for more details. (B-D) Examples of aneuploidy
detection using sequencing coverage data from three F1 individuals, “Cross_3_Plant_32”,
“Cross_3_Plant_25” and “Cross_38_Plant_01”, respectively (Figure S2, S3). The upper panels
show aneuploidy detection using a read-coverage approach and the lower panels show a
variant-calling based approach. The Ler chromosomes are indicated as L1-L5 (orange) and Col-
0 chromosomes are indicated as C1-C5 (blue). In both panels, every data point represents a
mean value (normalised read coverage / allele frequency) in a 100kb window of the genome.
For the upper panels, sequencing data are mapped to an in-silico hybrid genome that combines
TAIR10.1 (Col-0) and Ler. For the lower panels, the sequencing data are mapped to a Ler
reference genome. (B) Data from a euploid individual with normalised coverage consistent with
two copies of each maternally and paternally inherited chromosome (upper panel), and allele
frequencies clustering around 0.5 when mapped to a Ler reference genome (lower panel). (C)
Data from an individual affected by a full-length aneuploidy – a loss of one Chromosome 2 copy
from Col-0, resulting in a drop in coverage (upper panel) and sharp changes in allele frequency
(lower chromosome) for Chr2. (D) Data from an individual affected by a segmental loss of part
of Chromosome 4 from the Ler parent.

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Conventional #GMO crops have unexpected benefits in the face of climate change: reduced yield volatility, fewer climate related losses & even slowing the northward shift of US corn & soybean production. #climatecatastrophe www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Fig. 1 | Crop harvested land-use percentage change from 1978 to 2020.

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Highly recommended long read. (If opened in Substack app, should be automatically translated into English.) florianaigner.substack.com/p/die-ruckke...

Screenshot // The Return of Racial Theory

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Please consider submitting comments on the implementation for genome edited plants in the EU. Reminder: this is not the place for general statements regarding your personal vie of #NGT. Instead, the Commission is asking for input for the development of workable rules.

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Please submit comments to the EU Commission’s Call for Evidence on how to implement the new rules for "Plants obtained by new genomic techniques (#NGT)". Submission deadline 28 Sept. Below what I submitted. #plantscience ec.europa.eu/info/law/bet... ec.europa.eu/info/law/bet...

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Elections to the city senate next month in #Berlin. #Volt has a sense of humor.

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Ai Weiwei discussing his new book “On Censorship” in Berlin.

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Remember the spectacular claims from three years ago, that science is supposedly becoming less disruptive? Seems this was at least in part due to data artifacts. To be fair, the authors of the original study push back, that the new study is flawed as well. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

NSF-2026-OTR-0001 would implement ideology-based rules proposed by OMB, for short-term ideological goals that will greatly hurt the US's long-term competitiveness (my text also drive.google.com/file/d/1yKnZ...). Please comment here www.regulations.gov/commenton/NS...

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Our science & scientists also becoming victims of climate change. A/C systems not designed to deal with consecutive heatwaves & continuing to fail. Nearly 50°C in the room with our plant growth cabinets (which couldn't cope) today. 3 rounds of failed experiments. #plantscience #climatecatastrophe

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Eerie similarity between NodeGWAS and our gfa2bin tool. Uses same public data (curated by my lab), same comparison against previous method from my lab & even same programming language, Rust. gfa2bin preprint went online 5 months before NodeGWAS was submitted. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Many years ago, my lab helped to discover YUCCAs. Later, Jia-Wei Wang in the lab sussed out the role of miR156s in a range of developmental processes. And now YUCCA and miR156 reappear as partners in this beautiful paper from the Lenhard lab! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #plantscience

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Very happy to be able to host a student delegation from China Agricultural University led by my friend @wangshengzhu.bsky.social 🇩🇪🇨🇳 @mpi-bio-fml.bsky.social

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

What could possibly go wrong? AI autonomously designing nuclear reactors. Aren't out-of-distribution events a big deal for nuclear reactors? www.science.org/content/arti...

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

From the folks complaining about improper interpretation of Greek works: ‘federal agencies “should prioritize foundational research in the biological over the life sciences.”’ Biology, derived from Greek, literally means ‘science of life’. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/22/u...

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

Potatoes are on the right track. (As empiricist, had to check what they currently look like. Let’s give them a few more weeks.)

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

Essays, written on the same occasion but a decade apart, by two lovers of genetics ❤️ @genetics-gsa.bsky.social @schacherer.bsky.social

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

I very much doubt that there aren’t enough indirect pointers to retain all this information for the algorithm. I would think that it would need active training of the model to remove any inferences based on author history.

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

What a reflecting pool can look like. Normandy American Cemetery.

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

“unfortunately did not make it into The 1%.” This assumes that the goal was to be in the top 1%. Our work often paves the way for general interest studies. It doesn’t mean that everyone has to read our foundational papers. Also, “The 1%” seems very Trumpian. @qedscience.bsky.social

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

@borglab.bsky.social discussing fascinating idiosyncrasies of both brown and red algae when it comes to gene silencing and chromatin marks. Continuing his studies soon in his new lab in Kiel. #epigenetics

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

I’ve Ben looking forward to this talk by @thanvisrikant.bsky.social, who is speaking about her postdoctoral work with @kbomblies.bsky.social on the effect of #polyploidy on #chromatin architecture!

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

Machine-generated irony? (More seriously: thanks for sharing this!)

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

25 years at @maxplanck.de! (Really 40 years, if you count that I started my graduate studies exactly 40 years ago at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology under the guidance of my beloved mentor (and friend) Herbert Jäckle.)

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

My comments on proposed OMB Rule "Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance", written from the perspective of someone who became a naturalized citizen 25 yrs ago bc he believed in the US as a country of exceptional openness, opportunity & merit-based advancement drive.google.com/file/d/14Bbb...

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Amazing! This report suggests that a gall aphid injects into their plant host an enzyme that manipulates auxin levels in the host and thereby induces galls. #plantscience #plantsci www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

Contradictio in adjecto. Clearly not "omniscient".

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Thank you, @larsostergaard.bsky.social & @eunyoungchae.bsky.social for a wonderful visit to Oxford! An honor to give a lecture named for G. E. Blackman, Sibthorpian Professor of Rural Economy from 1945-70. I spoke about the tension between lab & field work; see www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

Präventive Nachricht von @deutschebahn.com, dass nicht damit zu rechnen ist, dass ein geplanter Umstieg von 6 Minuten am selben Bahnsteig gegenüber realistisch ist…

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

Erfreulich, dass moderne Züchtungstechnologien in der Hightech Agenda des Bundes als Flagschiff-Maßnahme hervorgehoben werden. Vielleicht geht den Deutschen doch noch ein Licht auf, dass wir in einer Polykrise aufgeschlossenes Denken und Handeln brauchen. www.bmftr.bund.de/DE/Technolog...

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

The authors also thought of the role of AI generated reviews:

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

Peer review crisis — this seems to make sense: A transparent universal credit system to incentivize peer review www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

Exciting new work on parallel #evolution: — genetic variants across butterflies are located in similar noncoding regions in ivory and optix. — in … more distant moths, a large inversion containing ivory, closely mirroring the supergene architecture of Heliconius. journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

Habe neulich eine ähnliche Erfahrung gemacht, aber es ist mir gelungen, einen Ersatz Dichtungsring zu besorgen, und ein Fachbetrieb, den ich über TaskRabbit fand, hat es sauber eingebaut.

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

LLMs are making me a better reviewer. After I write my review, I often ask an LLM whether there are things that I might have overlooked, both in the narrative and evaluation criteria. The typical outcome is that my review becomes more positive. I seem to be good enough at spotting flaws. 😎

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

What could be better than seeing a former member of your lab elected to the US National Academy of Sciences @nasonline.org? Huge congrats to Kirsten Bomblies @ethz.ch! Here are the two of us with @thanvisrikant.bsky.social , who was first a PhD student in my lab & then a postdoc with Kirsten.

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