Grateful to International Society for Plasmid Biology and MGEs for giving me the opportunity to present my talk virtually this morning! #ISPB2024

Harvesting the first greenhouse experiment of the Locke Lab today and tomorrow! Processing that first plant this morning and seeing the Bradyrhizobium nodules felt so good——research students were equally excited. Maybe I actually can do this whole research & teaching gig?

My mission began 47 years ago today when I joined my twin on our journey to the stars! 🚀 This past year has certainly been an eventful one. Makes you appreciate every day. Thanks to my team (and all of you) for not giving up on me! -V1

As a plant pathologist, I’m usually excited to find a disease, but today, seeing such a high and destructive incidence of clubroot, I felt frustrated and angry. Why don’t we have better solutions? Why aren’t we working together to find one? It’s time to set aside egos and unite

Fresh Mercury pics just dropped.

I actually don't like using Ai for my hardware projects. I need to develop a comprehensive mental model of what I am trying to build and editing someone else's code doesn't get me there. Can't expand on it easily and I feel restrained by the assistance.

Again, genetics tops any smart guessing: we had the answer in our drawer for years, we just didn’t know the question. Don’t ever throw away mutant lines!

How do plants balance FLS and DFR in flavonoid biosynthesis? Through differential expression and substrate preferences #FlavonoidFriday (details: doi.org/10.1371/journa… & lnk.tu-bs.de/YJ1B9o)

We're all on the same team.

nature.com/articles/s4155… Woah! "At the deepest phylogenetic levels, ancestral habitat reconstruction analyses suggest that eukaryotes may have first evolved in non-marine habitats and that the two largest known eukaryotic assemblages arose in different habitats."

Interesting...the virome of the last eukaryotic common ancestor is bacterial, not archaeal. nature.com/articles/s4156… This may be evidence that a bacteria engulfed an ASGARD archaea, rendering it immune from viruses, not the other way around as is typically assumed. Cool!

The age of frugal science is over. The time of frito science has come!

So grateful for all the nerds who found their niche, or niche found them, that keep the specifics of this complex world running. So many details in my day to day are made possible by thankless labor of many a hyperspecific PowerNerd™️ that loves what they do. Thank you eternal.

I am deeply appreciative of the NIGMS MIRA, and I'm ecstatic that I'll have one for another five years. NOA DAY!!

For anyone asking, Lidia (Agelenopsis spp.) is doing great. I can no longer open my window without damaging her funnel, so it's now a vivarium sill. Gonna try to crack open a lil so I can sneak in some prey.

Amateur scientists exist all over the world, doing amazing things. If you put in the hours and share your findings and contribute to your field in any way, then you are doing science. You can also do a lot with public data and simple tools too. Science is structured play Go play

You can make plant tissue culture vessels out of Diamond 2oz condiment cups. I got these from Walmart. The cups are autoclavable (polypropylene) but lids are not. Surface sterilize those. Join two cups with a thin strip of parafilm, wiped in hood with ethanol prior to wrapping.

Our third year of plant tissue culturing, following Sebastian S. Cocioba🪄🌷 protocols. Actually using last year’s seed for this year’s classes.