Zoologist and author Desmond Morris dies aged 98 Morris, who was also a surrealist painter and broadcaster, was best known for his 1967 book The Naked Ape.

Desmond Morris passed away yesterday. He was one of the last living links to classical ethology. While most famous for his book "The Naked Ape" (I wasn't a fan), his work in bird behavior was foundational for both ethology and the behavioral sciences broadly. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Someone in the Arabidopsis/clock community seems to deeply dislike my work on research culture. Just want to say: whoever you are, please write & debate me directly instead of cowering behind anonymous grant reviews that threaten my students’ work. (2nd year in a row)

GitHub - RILAB/statements: Successful Job Applications and Grants Successful Job Applications and Grants. Contribute to RILAB/statements development by creating an account on GitHub.

That time of year again! If you'd like an example of job apps in academia or industry, here's a good resource. If you got a job in industry or academia in the last few years, please consider adding yours! github.com/RILAB/statem...

Feels like this paper on protein-templated DNA synthesis by a natural enzyme warrants some comment.
So here's a 🧵. /1
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

I am so excited to share our new findings with you! We provide the structural evidence for a direct protein-to-DNA information pathway, showing how a bacterial enzyme 'reads' its own structure to 'write' DNA. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Host-adapted enzymatic deconstruction of acetylated xylan limits immune activation and facilitates mutualistic colonization of monocot roots This study identifies a monocot-specific enzymatic module in the beneficial root endophyte Serendipita indica, showing how ancestral saprotrophic enzymes have been repurposed into an immune-compatible...

Very proud to share our new paper led by Mathias Brands from my team at @UniCologne! With Markus Pauly team @HHU. Host-adapted enzymatic deconstruction of acetylated xylan limits immune activation and facilitates mutualistic colonization of monocot roots: Molecular Plant www.cell.com/molecular-pl...

Siri, what's the Matthew Effect?

Are you planning on attending ICAR2026 in Singapore in June? Do you have any cool bioinformatics tools or analyses that you'd like to share with the community? We're still looking for a few speakers in our Arabidopsis Bioinformatics session - let me know by the end of April if possible via DM!

Genome–host association mapping reveals wheat pathogen genes involved in host specialization - Nature Plants This study introduces genome–host association (GHA), leveraging natural epidemics to map the genetic landscape of host adaptation in the pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici. Applied to 832 wheat fungal stra...

Thrilled to share our paper now out in Nature Plants 🎉
We developed a genome-host association (GHA) approach to study pathogen adaptation directly from field metadata by using the originating host cultivar as phenotype.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New pre-print from the lab! We show that the subtilase SBT12a is essential for symbiosome stabilization in Medicago. Using HUNTER proteomics, we even got some of its substrates. Have a look.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...

This essay captures what AI for science debates often fail to recognize:
That in many academic fields, people creation is the main goal. That the supervision IS the science. That the real threat is "a slow, comfortable drift toward not understanding what you're doing"
ergosphere.blog/posts/the-ma...

Home – genomepanel_nf Nextflow pipeline for reference genome mapping, SNP calling and quality checks on large genome panels

Resequencing hundreds or thousands of individuals from the same species has become routine... but processing all those genomes efficiently? Still a headache!

Here's my solution that used to be lab-internal but that I am happy to share:

crolllab.github.io/genomepanel_...

Hallucinated citations are polluting the scientific literature. What can be done? Tens of thousands of publications from 2025 might include invalid references generated by AI, a Nature analysis suggests.

Tens of thousands of papers published in 2025 contain fake/hallucinated citations, an analysis by Nature and Grounded AI suggests
By @miryamnaddaf.bsky.social and Beth Quill | @nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Domain gain or loss in a fungal chitinase enables specialization towards antagonism or immune suppression - Nature Communications Gain or loss of a particular domain contributes to functional specialization of a conserved chitinase in beneficial root endophyte towards microbial antagonism or host immune suppression.

Really proud of this work led by Ruben Eichfeld! We show how a CBM domain gain/loss can rewire fungal chitinases, turning them from antifungal enzymes into immune-suppressing effectors that support plant symbiosis.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Ever wondered how the #cuticle, a hallmark of land plants, was established?

In our latest study, we show that the CUTIN SYNTHASE enzyme family was a key driver of this evolutionary innovation. #plantscience

▶️ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

A thread 🧵 [1/8]

Our new experimental evolution study across 30+ locations using the plant Arabidopsis thaliana —— we direct "see" adaptation and extinction to different climates at the genetic as it happens!

Read it in Science
dx.doi.org/10.1126/scie...

@ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social
@hhmi-science.bsky.social

Status of mycorrhiza research in 2026 Mycorrhizal symbiosis improves the nutrition of most land plants and plays key roles in nutrient cycling and ecosystem function. To understand and leverage the biology of mycorrhizal symbioses for su...

The first publication from the Dallaire and Kameoka labs is out! A forward-looking review on the status of mycorrhiza research in 2026, with emphasis on AM fungi doi.org/10.1111/nph.... @newphyt.bsky.social @ulaval.ca 🇨🇦

Convergent extreme reductive evolution in ancient planthopper symbioses - Nature Communications Symbiotic bacteria can have exceedingly small genomes. This study finds that ancient bacterial symbionts of planthoppers have repeatedly evolved the smallest known genomes, losing most biosynthetic fu...

Madness. A bacterium with a 10kb genome, lost replication initiation, translation.., relies on symbiotic host.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

⚠️⚠️

@jacquet-chris.bsky.social and I are organizing the 2nd "non seed plant" French meeting.

As for the one in 2025, the goal is to better structure our emerging community across French institutes.

It will take place in Toulouse, June 24th-25th.

Registration 🔽

nonseedplants26.sciencesconf.org

🥳 Happy that our manuscript, first published on @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social has been accepted for publication in "Microbiome" and will be part of a collection on "Harnessing plant microbiomes to improve performance and mechanistic understanding" link.springer.com/article/10.1...

🎉 Last week @antonkraege.bsky.social brilliantly defended his PhD thesis @unicologne.bsky.social entitled "Functional and Evolutionary Characterisation of Antimicrobial Effectors Secreted by Verticillium dahliae to Shape Host Microbiota" #proudPI #PhDone

1/11 🔥 New preprint alert 🔥
We wanted to know what plants in the wild really care about. So we asked them 🎤.
Here is what we learned: “Biotic-response networks are an important organizer of the transcriptome in wild Arabidopsis thaliana populations”
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Phylogeny of the 284 species of plants included in Conservatory data set. Conservatory uncovered ~2.3 million conserved non-coding DNA sequences across 284 plant species from 72 families including eudicots, monocots, gymnosperms, and algae. Illustrations by Professor Madelaine Bartlett.

Hiding in plain sight! 2.3M conserved non-coding sequences traced back 300M years across 284 plant species
Ground-breaking study out in First Release @science.org from labs of @madelaineb.bsky.social, @idane.bsky.social & Zach Lippman
▶️ doi.org/10.1126/scie...
▶️ www.slcu.cam.ac.uk/news/hiding-...

Just discovered this wonderful adaptation of our maize moving map (figshare.com/articles/fig...) by @andikur.bsky.social .

Fungal symbioses: A multiplicity of fungi in the lichen union Increasing evidence suggests that lichens are not just a partnership between one fungus and one alga or cyanobacterium but may contain multiple intera…

Thrilled to see this published! 😄
Our dispatch examines potential additional fungal symbionts in lichen partnerships and the key challenges in unraveling their biology.

Thanks for involving me in this @talbotlabtsl.bsky.social

@currentbiology.bsky.social

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Please check the latest from our lab! Root-fungus senses host nutrient status, determining its infection strategies!

Nanodomain-localized formin gates symbiotic microbial entry in legume and solanaceous plants Colonization of plant roots by symbionts requires substantial morphodynamic reorganization. Examples are actin-scaffolded microcompartments called infection pockets formed during root nodule symbiosis...

Happy to share our latest work in collaboration with the lab of @pengbo10.bsky.social. Here, we describe that a formin protein mediates the polarity switch from root hair to infection thread growth during symbiotic interactions.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

I am happy to announce the launch of a new Arabidopsis genomics resource! Check out arabidopsislyrata.org Now you can easily look at the natural genetic variation across the entire species range of A. lyrata and A. arenosa.