I heard from a colleague that they caught a student wearing Meta AI glasses in their final exam. Other students brought it to my colleague’s attention. Kudos to the other students

Tired of the uncertainty in dating? This one weird trick will bring back the confidence to your dating!

Two wee Cardamine growing in the gaps of a floor mat.

A moulded metal cast of an Arabidopsis thaliana rosette.

I loved this week's challenge and took a lot of terrible pics of Cardamine spp.
I'm also sharing a photo of my Arabidopsis thaliana necklace. It is such a celebrity: the first plant whose genome was sequenced, growing in labs all around the world. There's also an annual conference! #WildflowerHour

Spring evening in #Tübingen

It's been a while since we shared a profile, meet Poppy Isabella Nana-Akua Sarpong Cann. She is a master's student at The University of Bristol studying Abiotic Plant Signalling and was part of the first cohort of BiPS Summer Studentship Awardees in 2024. Learn more about her here: buff.ly/XNjaB2s

CAM photosynthesis may have conferred an advantage during the Permian-Triassic mass extinction event The end of the Palaeozoic Era approximately 252 million years ago (Ma) coincides with extensive volcanism from the Siberian Traps and was marked by global climate warming and environmental changes1,2,3,4. This led to the Permian–Triassic mass extinction (PTME) where oceanic species extinction rates exceeded 81%, while terrestrial tetrapod genera experienced 89% losses1. However, the nature of terrestrial vegetation response to this major environmental change is a matter of ongoing research and contrasting perspectives5,6,7,8,9. This lack of consensus is partly due to the taphonomic influence on plant fossil preservation9,10. Furthermore, precise dating of terrestrial sequences is difficult, making stratigraphic correlation of floras challenging; consequently, the PTME in terrestrial records is often discussed as the Permian–Triassic transition (PTT)5,6,10. However, what is apparent is that the occurrence of a large-scale floral turnover at the PTT was followed by a distinct, low diversity and low abundance lycophyte-dominated community (Fig. 1)5,6,11,12. Across a broad span of latitudes, from equatorial South China to high-latitude Siberia, the rise to dominance of the herbaceous lycophyte Tomiostrobus coincided with the extinction of the previously dominant Palaeozoic taxa, including Gigantopteris and Cordaites during the PTT (Fig. 1)5,6,12,13,14,15. For approximately 5 million years (Myr) after the PTME, the Earth experienced extreme...

CAM photosynthesis may have conferred an advantage during the Permian-Triassic mass extinction event
->Nature | More on "CAM photosynthesis mass extinction survival" at BigEarthData.ai | #Photosynthesis #MassExtinction

Male biased gene flow from N to S genetically rescued the S-Scandinavian brown bear population after a bottleneck caused by human persecution. 🦊 #Consgen

New preprint! We sequenced 175 'Alalā (Hawaiian crow) genomes to understand why >50% of eggs fail to hatch in a species recovered from just 9 individuals. What we found was a both exciting and surprising. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Thanks to @eepuckett.bsky.social , faculty and grad students in the Department of Biology at University of Memphis for an awesome visit! It was an absolute blast thinking about cool new synergies to complement research ideas. Fantastic visit to reinvigorate creativity!! With homage to Tiger Elvis ❤️

🐻Excited that my and @littlemuseums.bsky.social 's paper on the demographic history of American black bears across the eastern range is up!
While I think the phylogeography aspects are interesting, our key point is that named subspecies are unsupported.
doi.org/10.64898/202...

Dark skies and purple clouds over the lit up lilac ocean. With the moon and Venus right in the middle.

The moon and Venus just after sunset on Maui.

#marinelife #nature #photography #eastcoastkin #love #nokings

The Iranian government’s depiction of LEGO Kash Patel is lit.

BREAKING: Donald Trump just boosted Democrats’ chances of taking the House.

He said the quiet part out loud, “fair elections” means he loses power.

That’s not a warning, that’s a confession.

thank you bell hooks

'It's a bummer': Economist gobsmacked watching Trump throw soaring economy in the toilet President Donald Trump was handed a world-class economy, and has thrown it all down the drain over his war in Iran, Veda Partners economic analyst Henrietta Treyz told MS NOW's Katy Tur on Monday afte...

'It's a bummer': Economist gobsmacked watching Trump throw soaring economy in the toilet

www.rawstory.com/trump-iran-2...

The Department of Labor has improved the lives of millions of people. I worked like hell as secretary of labor because I believed in what we were doing.

What's happened at the department under this latest Trump regime is an insult to generations of DOL employees, to American workers, to America.

In California, we’ll continue to provide health care for our people.

We’re not backing down in the face of Donald Trump’s massive cuts to Medi-Cal.

This rather creepy photo is Artemis II’s heat shield underwater, as taken by the U.S. Navy. This is the first photo we have of the heat shield, and upon initial examination it doesn’t seem to have the char loss that Artemis I’s had.

Seems to me like Trump is desperately begging Iran to sign a replica of the Obama JCPOA he tore up. All for the low low price of thousands dead, global instability, high energy prices, and a toll on ships through the once-free strait of Hormuz.

A handful of yellow-orange California poppies pop in front of a large field of vibrant purple camas and grass.

I stumbled upon this unexpected field of #camas flowers at a city park. Based on the location, it looks like a highly successful #restoration project bringing amazing colour to an otherwise unremarkable field.

#bloomscrolling

Harnessing random peptide mixtures to combat multidrug-resistant fungal infections | mBio The rising prevalence of invasive fungal infections, particularly among immunocompromised individuals, has become a critical public health concern. However, antifungal drug development has not kept pace with this growing need, and treatment options remain limited to a small number of drug classes. The emergence of multidrug-resistant fungal pathogens, such as Candida auris, further exacerbates this crisis by reducing the efficacy of existing therapeutics and increasing the risk of treatment failure. In this study, we evaluate the antifungal potential of FK20, a random peptide mixture (RPM) composed of L-phenylalanine and L-lysine. FK20 displays potent activity against C. auris and other clinically relevant Candida species, impairs biofilm formation, and exhibits synergy with caspofungin. Importantly, FK20 limits the emergence of resistance and demonstrates therapeutic efficacy in a murine model of systemic candidiasis. These findings establish RPMs as a promising new class of antifungals with broad-spectrum activity and clinical potential against drug-resistant fungal infections.

🚨A random solution to a growing fungal threat🚨
Our work on random peptide mixtures reveals potent antifungal activity against multidrug-resistant pathogens like C. auris, with low resistance potential and strong biofilm activity.
Now out in mBio!
Congrats to John and Yael for the fantastic work 👏

AUKUS and the sunk cost trap beneath the surface As warfare shifts decisively toward autonomous and distributed systems, Australia’s massive investment in nuclear submarines risks locking in a costly and inflexible strategy.

AUKUS. As warfare shifts decisively toward autonomous and distributed systems, Australia’s massive investment in nuclear submarines risks locking in a costly and inflexible strategy.
johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04...

Project Nexus - TID Water & Power Project Nexus - Project Nexus includes the installation of solar panel canopies over various sections of Turlock Irrigation District’s (TID) irrigation canals. Project Nexus will serve as a Proof of C...

Hi John! I think it’s invite only, but I can put you in touch with folks the right folks. Send me an email and I can introduce you to project nexus team. www.tid.org/current-proj...

Excited to attend the ribbon-cutting for the next segment of California’s solar canal initiative later this month in Hickman. Imagine generating solar power over 4,000 miles or so canals across the state. A lot of Sierra and Colorado River water to save via avoided evaporation.

Europe’s EV sales surge just hit 51% – and oil is the reason why EV sales in Europe jumped 51% in March amid rising oil prices, with over 224,000 cars sold and energy security driving the shift.

Europe’s EV sales surge 51% in March 2026 – and oil is the reason why
electrek.co/2026/04/20/e...

#3S50 22 What is soil fertility and how is it important?💭
Healthy soils sustain life. 🌿🌦️
But land degradation leads to, among other things, the loss of #soil fertility constituting a risk to food security.
twitter.com/UNBiodiversi...
twitter.com/bratananium/...

Tiny Microbes Hiding in Soil May Help Pull Rain From The Sky, Study Reveals Tiny organisms on the ground – bacteria and fungi – have a "superpower" that allows them to reach up into the atmosphere and pull down the rain, according to a recent study. To understand how a microbe can control a storm, we first have to look at how clouds become rain. High up in the atmosphere, water doesn't always freeze at 0 °C. Temperatures are normally much lower at cloud level, but pure water can stay liquid down to a bone-chilling -40 °C. Most rain starts as ice. In the atmosphere, clouds are full of "supercooled" water – liquid that is colder than freezing but hasn't turned to ice yet because it has nothing to hold onto. For a cloud to turn into rain or snow, it needs a "seed"– a tiny particle for water molecules to grab onto so they can crystallize into ice, then fall from the clouds as rain. Dust, soot, and salt – swept into the clouds by wind – can do this, but they aren't very good at it. They usually require the temperature to drop significantly before they start working. This is where biology enters the frame. Meet the ice-makers For decades, scientists have...

Tiny Microbes Hiding in Soil May Help Pull Rain From The Sky, Study Reveals
->ScienceAlert | More on "Microbes influencing rainfall through atmosphere" at BigEarthData.ai | #Soil

Twenty solar plants in France are doing more than generating energy, allowing the soil to 'breathe' and triggering an unexpected effect Solar energy farms are doing so much more than just generating energy. More of us turn to the solar power sector to meet our energy needs. A recent study published in March has explained a few unexpected benefits that have emerged from this. And not from where you might be expecting. How are solar panel farms allowing the soil around them to “breathe”? How the benefits of clean energy production are becoming clearer to us A recent study has detailed the newest benefit from solar power. Europe overall has welcomed the renewable energy market with open arms. And France in particular seems to have a propensity for solar power. But how can 20 solar plants in France trigger an unexpected effect on soil? The soil of the Earth is filled with oxygen and moisture. A study found that solar farms are triggering a “breath” of fresh air, but the real question is why? And why in France in particular, when the rest of the world also has solar power? We need to understand both the negative and positive impacts of solar power generation. And this study has answered that very question. Another real impact of solar power generation has been...

Twenty solar plants in France are doing more than generating energy, allowing the soil to 'breathe' and triggering an unexpected effect
->Ecoportal | More on "Solar farms regenerating French soil" at BigEarthData.ai | #Soil

My Pot garden is coming to life! 😉🌿🌷🙏 #gardening #plantproject2025 #education #growyourown #vegetables #herbs #horticulture #sustainable #soil #trees #nature #homesteading #springbulbs #dutchtulips #potgarden #skygarden #myzen #natureheals #namaste #onelove #peace #hobby #profession

Microbiome signature of Parkinson's disease in healthy and genetically at-risk individuals
->Nature | More on "Parkinson's disease gut microbiome genetics" at BigEarthData.ai | #Healthy #SoilHealth #Microbiome #Disease