John Fowler (he/him)

Hi all, Fall 🍂 is here and so is @plantpostdocs.bsky.social Sahyadri Symposium 2026 featuring presentations from this year’s Sahyadri Award Outstanding Plant Postdocs recipients Friday, Oct 30, 2026 9:00 AM PT/11:00 AM CT/12:00 PM ET Register👇 for a spot! caltech.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

New OA Article: "The class VIII myosin ATM2 stabilizes actin–plasma membrane contacts in tobacco pollen tubes by locally promoting PtdIns(4,5)P2 formation" rdcu.be/gf9AZAuUiBga The modulation of plasma membrane lipids stabilizes membrane-proximal actin dynamics. #PlantScience

Your monthly reminder that if you're using ChatGPT to do your science, you're failing your colleagues, community, and all of us. Here, ChatGPT makes up data and presents it as the real thing — then apologizes when confronted.

I live in a rural town and, like, I don't know how to tell you this, but the girls play on the boys team and vice versa all the time because otherwise we don't have enough players for a game and it's literally always fine so stop being weirdos about kids sports and just let trans kids play.

Pollen tube integrity is critical for thermotolerance in tomato and is enhanced by loss of SlRALF1 | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

I voted! 🗳️ (absentee, online) Before I moved to Canada, I lived in Raleigh, NC. So as an overseas citizen voter, I'm a Wake County North Carolina voter forever (unless I move back to the States). If you're eligible to vote in the US midterms, I hope you voted too!

excited to share a new preprint! We can describe the expected spectrum of genotype configuration counts under a given population selfing rate from Nordborg and Donnelly's partial-selfing model. Think SFS.... but including information about pairing within diploids: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

This is so fucking disgusting. Imagine having a billion dollars and deciding that instead of curing disease you will torture dogs.

This Monday: Fellowship Writing for Beginners. Panelists who’ve won NSF-GRFP, USDA-NIFA & FFAR on how they found the right fellowships and what made their applications stand out. Free, on Zoom. Mon Oct 26, 3 PM ET / 12 PM PT Register: udel.zoom.us/meeting/regi... #PlantScience #GradSchool

✅ Conference funding for five plant biology conferences in 2027 including ICAR2027 Madison! 🌱 Deadline November 20, 2026 🌱 Apply as a pair: mentor & mentee 🌱 Please share this excellent opportunity from @root-shoot.bsky.social rootandshoot.org/2027travelaw...

“I believe that NSF has lost any semblance of independence and that any policy statement coming out of NSF is directed by the White House, presumably OSTP, in consultation with OMB,” says former NSF Director Neal Lane. 🔥 via @policyhound.bsky.social

Only one more week left for me to figure out how to squeeze what I want to say about promoting inclusion in plant science into an 8 minute talk 😅 😉. But seriously, join us. It'll be great, I promise! Time for discussion too! www.arabidopsiscommunity.org/news-events/...

🌿💻 Are you teaching or learning computational methods in plant science? Explore our latest article type: Methods for Plant Modeling articles describe software, tools, models, and other resources in an accessible way, making them suitable for educational use. 📰 See the collection at buff.ly/P1GV8q6

If you thought Ben Lamm was a shithead, you underestimated him. He's worse. Genetically engineering any creatures, but dogs especially, to be weapons of war — it's unspeakable. www.forbes.com/sites/amyfel...

We found that as of right now 73% of your campaign donation goes back to the consultants and vendors (!!!), four times more than just 20 years ago. Only 13% to ads. Even I was shocked.

Exciting science and great colleagues at OSU Botany & Plant Pathology ! And Corvallis OR is a lovely location - looking forward to seeing an exciting pool of applicants for this position...

🚨 BREAKING: Democrats have filed a new lawsuit against Trump, asking a federal court to block his administration from: 🔺Threatening election officials with criminal prosecution 🔺 Pressuring states to remove voters from the rolls The suit comes just a week after Trump’s DOJ sued California.

Exciting news!! I'm chairing the search in my department @lsubiosci.bsky.social for an **Endowed Chair in Lichenology**! The candidate should be tenured (or equivalent), and have a documented track record in excellent in collections-based lichen research. lsu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/LSU/jo...

The title really intrigued me, but I couldn't have imagined how much I would love this paper! Actually, I was so excited by the findings that I wrote a @prelights.bsky.social😄 If you haven't read it yet, go dive into this amazing paper lead by @noelponte.bsky.social 🤩 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

If you’re in STEM and you’re eligible to vote in the midterms…YOU BETTER BE VOTING. I want “I VOTED” sticker selfies in the comments. This is an unconstitutional robbery of our scientific ecosystem cen.acs.org/policy/resea...

Huge congratulations to @vivzhong.bsky.social, @michaelajonesphd.bsky.social and team on the publication of their work in Nature Biotechnology today! They engineered plants to produce a non-canonical amino acid that regulates gene expression in engineered microbes! 🌱 doi.org/10.1038/s415...

New research. Conveniently, Marchantia has relatively few transcription factors. Yet, we need to leverage on that at the family scale to have a more comprehensive picture. In this paper, we focused on ERFs, the second largest TF family. #PlantScience www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

🚨 Our department is hiring! Looking to fill an endowed position in genetics/genomics to join us in beautiful Oregon. Search is at the Associate/Full Professor level. See below for details and share with your colleagues!

We have two faculty positions open in synthetic biology (one experimental and one computational), both very broadly defined. Deadline is Oct 31. The Dept of Bioengineering in the Knight Campus at UOregon is a great place to work. Come join us! careers.pageuppeople.com/726/cw/en-us...

Come be my colleague! UNL has an open-rank position in Plant Metabolism. See more details in the link below. #botany #botanyjobs employment.unl.edu/postings/102...

So we fly a pride flag in our front yard in a very conservative neighborhood and it’s been there for the last few years. Someone put this in our mailbox and my goodness…

My heart is completely broken for the children, families, teachers, and entire Silver Rail Elementary community in Bend, Oregon today. Elementary school should be about jungle gyms, math class, and making new friends—not learning where to hide from a shooter.

AI researchers warn technology 'months away' from being able to get reimbursement using Concur

It’s the annual ‘Fall is Fabulous in Corvallis’ harvest post! Always exciting to get an initial sense of some experimental results from these ears…

Our preprint now peer-reviewed and published 🌾🔬🧬 Grasses have a signature short-long leaf epidermal pattern: small stomata & hair cells spaced by long pavement cells, but how is it built? Premitotic BdPL1 sets cell-size asymmetry; postmitotic BdBRX-solo/BdYDA1 enforces fate. doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...

PSA: For anyone writing a recommendation for the NSF grad fellowship this year, recs are due on Fri Oct 16, 8pm Eastern, cleverly *before* the actual application deadline. This tidbit isn't on the NSFGRF front page anymore; it's buried inside the program solicitation:

As a PhD student designing my first survey, I added what I thought was a throwaway question at the end. To my surprise, thousands of academics answered it! The paper is out today: doi.org/10.1093/pnas...

Applications are open for Simons Postdoctoral Fellowships in Plant Biology. Due Dec. 3. Thinking about how ecology and evolution shape plant strategies? This might be a good fit. www.simonsfoundation.org/grant/simons...

🌽 Ensemble of best linear unbiased predictor, machine learning and deep learning #models predict #maize yield better than each #model alone by Daniel Kick, Jacob Washburn @cafnr buff.ly/vvuh2Jq #PlantScience

My quote of the day If anyone can say 'go back,' it's Native Americans. My Pueblo ancestors, despite being targeted at every juncture - despite facing famine and drought - still inhabit this country today. But indigenous people aren't asking anyone to go back to where they came from. Deb Haaland

Signup link, new home on the community website, and new email list for those who don’t live on slack all coming soon. In the meantime, schedule and zoom link still here: docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

Congratulations to Pat on this prestigious award and on his contributions to the Maize Genetics Community.

If we have a logo we must be legit right?

Today, and every day, we stand with the Somali community.

🌱🦠 Excited to share part of my PhD work @mpipz.bsky.social with @hotvegetables.bsky.social as co-first, in collab with @leibnizipk.bsky.social and @ceplas.bsky.social. We found that Arabidopsis and its microbiota work together to adapt iron acquisition to soil pH. www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... 🧵

BPP is hiring! come join us in @osubpp.bsky.social The Department of Botany & Plant Pathology invites applications for a 12-month (0.75 FTE), tenure-track Assistant Professor position in extension plant pathology. more at link below: oregonstate.wd501.myworkdayjobs.com/OSU_Careers_...

Heya I put together a bunch of things that i have been thinking about over the past a few years into this insight piece and look forward to any discussion this may lead to 🌸💚

As scientists we are trained to look for simple explanations that fit the data in front of us and make testable predictions about what will happen in the future.

Trump announced $100M to train U.S. citizen scientists only. www.bloomberg.com/news/article... These are not new funds. NSF underspent its education funds by $100M this past year. Of course, it pales in comparison to the $560M lost due to terminated NSF education grants: grantwitness.org/nsf 🧪

Postdoc opp; the Katherine Esau Fellowship @UC Davis funds 2–3 years of work on plant structure and function. Curious how plant structure shapes plant-microbe interactions? Get in touch! Due Nov 1, international applicants welcome. www-plb.ucdavis.edu/about/fellow...

Central cell–produced salvagers promote fertilization recovery and interspecific hybridization | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Good grief. What a depressing article. Plants mentioned briefly once, about their interactions with animals. How can the New York Times pretend to have captured "the biggest question in science" without reference to the most important kingdom, which sustains us? 😤 www.nytimes.com/2026/10/05/s...