The record of the dates of the start of the cherry blossoms in Japan is a classic natural measure of climate change (two posts below) -

The Moon: oh wow you guys decided to come back

Artemis II crew: earth’s haunted

A photo of a merch table at a DOC visitor centre in Tongariro, showing natural-coloured tote bags, tea towels, enamel mugs, and caps featuring Pepper Raccoon's Tongariro artwork.

A digital flatlay of a design for Tongariro National Park, featuring a flying Kahu hawk over the lakes in the crossing.

A digital flatlay of a design for Tongariro National Park, featuring a flying Kahu hawk over the lakes in the crossing.

A digital flatlay of a design for Tongariro National Park, featuring a flying Kahu hawk over the lakes in the crossing.

I recently did a collaboration with the Department of Conservation to develop a line of merch for their iconic visitor centres at Tongariro and Aoraki National Parks...

The Aoraki designs aren't public yet, but I can share the Tongariro designs which are now available for purchase on location.

You need to make AI guidelines for your lab Here's why you should, and how to start

“first drafts of Results, Discussion, and Introduction should be the trainee’s own work. AI can help with grammar…tightening prose…critiquing the logic of an argument you’ve already made. But the hard part of forming the argument needs to be yours.’ blekhman.substack.com/p/you-need-t...

Map of the contiguous United States showing the spring bloom index anomaly as of April 5, 2026 from the USA National Phenology Network. Many areas are earlier than normal.

"Spring bloom has been mostly early across the country, with central states seeing conditions for bloom 2-5 weeks early than a long-term average (1991-2020). Denver, CO is 35 days early, and Nashville, TN is 17 days early."

Information from @usa-npn.bsky.social: www.usanpn.org/data/maps/sp...

/fish/fish_adjacent 😂

Just put them all under /fish with no further taxonomic detail, I don't even think its that unreasonable at this point 😅😅

The more sequence data I get at, the deeper I feel this in my soul 😅

Fancy a permanent lectureship in ecology at a great little uni in Aotearoa New Zealand?

We have TWO roles available as part of our Joint Institute programme with Huazhong Agriculture University in Wuhan, China; 16 weeks teaching there, the rest at LU.

careers.lincoln.ac.nz/jobdetails/a...

This report is terrible for the environment. NZ massively under-monitors environmental change and this is an issue in a changing climate because we will miss impacts of climate and other global change processes until it's too late to do anything about them.
www.mbie.govt.nz/assets/repor...

The report is dire all around but particularly bleak for Ag and Bioeconomy if its signals are followed. NZAS comments are on our releases page. scientists.org.nz/press-releas...

Herbarium Sheets Are Holding Secrets Their Makers Never Intended When you mount a plant on a sheet, you capture more than botany. A new paper reveals the unexpected historical treasures hiding in herbaria, and why closing them is a mistake.

Herbarium Sheets Are Holding Secrets Their Makers Never Intended
www.botany.one/herbarium-sh...

When you mount a plant on a sheet, you capture more than botany. A new paper reveals the unexpected historical treasures hiding in herbaria, and why closing them is a mistake.
#Botany #PlantScience

"Submerging researcher"

(This actually is what the midcareer bit feels like, to me)

Ohhhh I love this! I saw some missing doggo posts on facey and honestly didn't have high hopes - yay for a bright spot in the daily doomscroll!

Keeping tabs on Otago trees Science comes to the rescue to help identify apple tree varieties in an Otago heritage orchard.

Genetics is helping identify and protect historic apple varieties at the Jim Dunckley Heritage Orchard near Dunedin, turning it into a true living library.
The Apple ID project is supported by Ag@Otago and BSI.
www.odt.co.nz/rural-life/h...
#Horticulture #HeritageApples #AgScience #Genomics #Otago

Fig. 1.Graphic representation of the Rvi2-ELG-10kb assay. This 5′ fluorogenic hydrolysis probe assay targets a large insert highly associated with Rvi2 resistance using two probes and three primer sequences. The latter consist of one forward-primer (‘F_2Ins’) and two reverse-primer sequences (‘R_Rvi2_ref’ and ‘R_2Ins’). The primer pair ‘F_2Ins’ and ‘R_Rvi2_ref’ amplify the reference genome allele, while ‘F_2Ins’ and ‘R_2Ins’ amplify the insert allele. The ‘PrIns_Rvi2 (FAM)’ probe is specific for the 5′ reference/insert boundary and the ‘Rvi2_ref_Pr (YAK)’ probe is specific for the immediate 3′- and 5′-sequences flanking the insert. The probes are designed so that the reporter fluorophores are on the 5′-end and the quencher is on the 3′-end.

🍎🛡️ RESEARCH 🛡️🍎

The Rvi2 locus that confers resistance to scab in apple is fine-mapped to a 10 kb LTR retrotransposon insertion containing an FPPS gene, and used to develop a structural variant marker – López-Girona et al.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/jxb/...

#PlantScience 🧪 Awais Khan

PUBLIC TALK- The Beatrice Hill Tinsley Lecturer-Astronomy vs. the Billionaire Space Race- Dr. Samantha Lawler In February 2024, hundreds of pounds of potentially lethal debris from a SpaceX Crew Dragon trunk from a private astronaut mission fell on farmland near Regina,

Christchurch public talk info here! events.humanitix.com/public-talk-the-beatrice... #ProfSamLectureTour

This isn't shortread data, but alignments of genome assemblies with N50 > 100Mb. The plot is the # of bp per 100Kb window that are dropped because of missing data -- because those bp physically are not there in one of the other 25 genomes. This is what normal plant genomes look like, folks.

A forlorn landscape of layered rocks in the foreground, with hills fading into the background haze. At upper top right, a small crescent moon, and a bright star.

Open up this picture fully.

Then look at the surface of Mars.

Then look up to the top right.

Spot Mars' moon Phobos high in the sky.

Then notice the bright spot beside Phobos.

That's Earth.

To history of science scholars that may be around: Do you happen to have any good refs on the history of chromosome linkage mapping, map units, the definition of the centiMorgan and so on?
#histsci #histbio #genetics #biology #historyofscience #haldane

In 1997, we asked: How will ecosystems respond to rising CO₂? Then we waited—25 years. 

NZ FACE revealed slow changes: pasture growth up just 3%, fertiliser efficiency halved, and forage quality fell.
 
Learn more: bit.ly/4qcPNzS

#ClimateChange #FutureFarming

always reblog food system insights

"Both hops... impart a pleasant aromatic property" is a hoot - 30-odd years later, that's probably what NZ-bred varieties are best known for internationally.

Not quite Watson and Crick levels of "it has not escaped our notice..." prescient understatement but cool no less 😂

Hoowwwwww stinkin' cool is this - entrusted to the task of muling this (unopened) DSIR-era artefact to our hop breeder in Motueka. It must be almost as old as me 😅👵

Wonder if we could twist someone's arm to do a BSI IPA with some of our newer varieties?!

I'd part with Actual Dollarbucks for a gene-edited MLO locus in my goth violas, this powdery mildew is killing the vibe

Aaarrrgghhh there used to be a place in Palmy that did an absolutely incredible supreme-esque pizza with gherkins... not QUITE enough to make me move back, but I still think about that pizza a lot

Honestly living and working in Lincoln this is... not inaccurate 😅

One mild sunburn, four excellent sampling buddies, a few scratches to shins and 800-odd hops later.... home time. Perfectly timed for sampling at a comfy height though!

Thanks Motueka, always a pleasure 🫶🌿🍻

Arabi-hops-is