Sandy Hetherington

Plant Sciences 🌿 are really well represented on the Euro Evo Devo committee @plantevodevo-ab.bsky.social and @ucdflowerpower.bsky.social and the local organising committee with @drannisr.bsky.social and I so we hope there will be a really good turn out from the Plant Evo Devo community! 🌼🌱

I am particularly excited about:
The keynote from @beverleycubg.bsky.social
Symposia 1- Evo-Devo Principles of Plant Specialized Metabolism
Symposia 18- Evo-Devo of Plant Forms and Patterns
Symposia 22- Forty years of Molecular Paleontology and beyond @phil-donoghue.bsky.social

We are really excited that Euro Evo Devo will take place here in Scotland from the 9th-12th June, at the University of Glasgow!

Deadline for Early Bird Registration and Abstract Submission are rapidly approaching in March so do register soon!

www.evodevoconference26.com/important-da...

Here is the Share Link if you are struggling to get access to the paper:
authors.elsevier.com/a/1mfk53QW8S...

Rhizoid‐mediated phosphate uptake and internal transport in the non‐vascular plant Marchantia polymorpha Click on the article title to read more.

Rhizoid‐mediated phosphate uptake and internal transport in the non‐vascular plant Marchantia polymorpha nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Interested in the most recent developments in plant science? Join the Mendel Early Career Symposium on May 21-22 at the @viennabiocenter.bsky.social to exchange with experts about their science and career trajectories. Register by March 13th for a talk. More here: www.oeaw.ac.at/gmi/news-eve...

What to learn more about the enigmatic organism Prototaxites?? Have a read of our new Quick Guide in @currentbiology.bsky.social
It includes another great palaeo-reconstruction of the Rhynie ecosystem from @matt-humpage.bsky.social

🚨JOB alert🚨

We have three (yes, THREE) 🌟lectureships🌟 advertised in the School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol.

Broad remit, including #AnimalBehaviour & #GlobalChangeBiology

⏱️Deadline: 8th March 2026
🙏Please circulate widely

😊Come join us!

Full #job details: tinyurl.com/y3us95rc

A phylogenetic framework of the lower vertebrates.

"We describe the only known example of a three-dimensionally mineralized heart, thick-walled stomach, and bilobed liver from arthrodire placoderms, stem gnathostomes from the Late Devonian Gogo Formation in Western Australia"
www.science.org/doi/epdf/10....
🧪 ⚒️ #Geology #Paleobio #EvoBio

Life cycle of Cyanidiophyceae.

Fascinating single-cell red algae: models for evolution and adaptation

#TansleyReview by Berger et al.

nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

#plantscience

Delighted to share our new preprint: "Evolution of moss leaf-like organs through variations in deeply conserved developmental principles."
Led by Ph.D. student Wenye Lin from my lab @irbv.bsky.social ,
in collab. with Yoan Coudert (ENS Lyon) and Richard Smith (JIC).
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Saskia Hogenhout standing in a seminar room

A wonderful seminar by @saskiahogenhout.bsky.social today! Thanks for making the trip north to @instmolplantsci.bsky.social

ONLINE COVER Maximum-intensity projection of a confocal image of epidermal cells from the Thale cress roots, where four colors stain different cell parts. Goldy et al. demonstrate that the protein actin allows cells to override standard division rules by stabilizing the orientation of spindles, which segregate chromosomes during mitosis. This uncovers a previously under-appreciated role for actin cytoskeletons, providing new insight into how division orientation is controlled to ensure robust tissue architecture during plant growth. Credit: Camila Goldy

What could be more satisfying than this ?

✨️Congrats to all the authors ✨️

Could not be more proud of you 🥹

Credit: Camila Goldy @camilagoldy.bsky.social

For my pals in the UK: @waterstones.bsky.social is running a fantastic pre-order promotion this month! You can order The Story of Birds and save 25%!

Just be sure to use the code FEB26 when ordering!

Thanks as always to Waterstones and my publisher @picadorbooks.bsky.social #WPreorder

Recruitment of bifunctional regulator thermospermine to methylated ribosomes directs xylem fate Polyamines are often associated with ribosomes and are thought to stabilize their integrity. In Arabidopsis, the polyamine thermospermine (tSpm) affects xylem cell fate. tSpm induces translation of SU...

Recruitment of bifunctional regulator thermospermine to methylated ribosomes directs xylem fate | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🚨 Positions available in Plant Science! Please share. We’re hiring:
1. Postdoc
2.PhD (UK applicants only)
Focus: root oxygen dynamics, developmental signalling. Come help us uncover how O2 shapes root development.
More info here-
sites.google.com/view/root-re...
#plantscijobs #plantscience

Evolution and development: What makes a merry stem? From tiny mosses to giant redwoods, around 450,000 species of land plants show a huge variety of forms, yet all land plants develop from stem cells in proliferative meristems. What makes a meristem? T...

It was good to catch up on my reading for this dispatch in Current Biology. Sjoerd Woudenberg in the Weijers lab, Wallner et al. In the Dolan lab and Flores Sandoval et al. In the Bowman lab have done a great job! Evolution and development: What makes a merry stem?: www.cell.com/current-biol...

Not a Fungi after all: New clues to the identity of Prototaxites | Plantae The colonization of land by plants was a crucial event in Earth’s history that fundamentally transformed our planet’s surface. Early plants were small and structurally simple…

Plant Science Research Weekly --  Not a Fungi after all: new clues to the identity of Prototaxites (Science Advances) (Summary by Katarina Kurtović, katarinakurtovic.bsky.social) @sandyheth.bsky.social @transitionalform.bsky.social buff.ly/DwgUr2f

#PlantaePSRW

Read all about Diego's hunt for lycophytes around Scotland in this post!
👇👇

Blog - Bringing the wilderness to IMPS: Fieldwork in Scotland to generate a lycophyte living collection – likely UK’s largest! | Molecular Plant Sciences | Biology This blog was written by Diego Sanchez Ganfornina, of the Molecular Palaeobotany and Evolution Group (Hetherington Lab | Biology MPEG), collating considerations and reflections through his spring fiel...

A new blog is out on our website! 📄 Go check it out! Diego Sanchez Ganfornina from @sandyheth.bsky.social's lab talks about the field work he just completed in Scotland. He is trying to generate a lycophyte living collection – likely UK’s largest! 🌿 biology.ed.ac.uk/plant-scienc...

Detail of the wood tissue in a fossil stem of Sigillaria seen under the microscope. It shows files of conducting cells and rays.

Today's lycopsids ("clubmosses") are small plants and do not produce wood but some of their Paleozoic relatives did! This is a detail of the wood cells in a stem of Sigillaria from the Carboniferous of the USA 🔬🌿⛏️ Happy #FossilFriday!
#paleobotany #botany

Organ transcriptomic data from seven angiosperm species, compared to mammalian data and Evolutionary transcriptome analysis Revealed that in angiosperms, rapid evolution of gene expression patterns contributed to divergence.

#PlantSci Res Wkly Jan 30 (2/2) plantae.org/plant-scienc...
Mechanoperception and defense signaling;
Rapid evolutionary gene expression shifts shaped angiosperms;
Intergenerational epigenetic acquired nematode resistance; That big, big fossilized organism that probably isn’t fungal after all

Mendel Early Career Symposium 2026 Register below for the 2026 Mendel Early Career Symposium21-22 May 2026 at the Campus-Vienna-Biocenter, AUSTRIA   Please select the events you would like to attend and add them to the cart in order ...

Interested in giving a talk? Submit your abstract by 13 March to be considered.

More Information about the event and registration here: events.vbc.ac.at/gmi_events/m...

#Mendel_ECR_26 #WhereKnowledgeGrows

Paul Kenrick, Laura Cooper and Sean McMahon

Sandy Hetherington and Laura Cooper holding a bottle of fizz with balloons

The very first Dr from the group! Congratulations Laura @transitionalform.bsky.social @instmolplantsci.bsky.social for passing your viva yesterday!! 🎉🎉
Thanks so much @seanhmcmahon.bsky.social and Paul Kenrick for acting as examiners

The World Tonight - President Zelensky slams Europeans for being in ‘Greenland mode’ - BBC Sounds At Davos, the Ukrainian president attacked his European allies for their passivity.

It’s been amazing to receive so much interest in the Prototaxites paper!
An absolute highlight was talking about the work last night to Jane Hill on BBC R4, The World Tonight
The Prototaxites segment starts at 33 mins 👇👇
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Prototaxites fossils are structurally and chemically distinct from extinct and extant Fungi Prototaxites fossils are distinct from Fungi, suggesting that they represent an extinct lineage of eukaryotic life.

It was a joy to contribute to this paper led by @sandyheth.bsky.social, Corentin Loron and Laura Cooper. We show the Devonian fossil, Prototaxites, is not a fungus but is in fact an organism from an as yet unknown extinct eukaryotic lineage.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

@dcu-lsi.bsky.social

Mystery tower fossils may be a whole new kind of life Towering Prototaxites ruled Earth before trees—and they may have been a form of life entirely new to science

www.scientificamerican.com/article/myst...

This is the final published version of the preprint

Giant mystery fossil reveals secrets of whole new form of life that no longer exists Prototaxites belonged to an ‘entirely extinct evolutionary branch of life‘

www.independent.co.uk/news/science...

Aberdeenshire fossil dating back 410 million years joins museum collection Researchers say the fossil found in Aberdeenshire is neither plant nor fungus as previously thought.

Really exciting to get some press coverage on our Prototaxites paper @instmolplantsci.bsky.social @edinburgh-uni.bsky.social
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...