@jrossibarra.bsky.social
evolutionary genomics of maize and wild relatives. erstwhile ethnobotanist. purveyor of bad puns. dad. prof and HPC director at UC Davis. not actually a cool cow from 1994. rilab.ucdavis.edu. views, especially bad ones, mine only (he/him)
You are right! But as you must also know, I very much appreciate Douglas Adams appraisal of the importance of potatoes and corn when he said: ""My universe is my eyes and my ears. Anything else is hearsay." And Voltaire when he said "Le maïs est le chemin vers le cœur."
That’s awesome!
I teach a class on evolution and ecology in Spanish. Today was presentations, and we got a bunch of fun stuff, from the effect of invasive plants on mosquito diversity to the Axolotl genome. One student even found this cool paper that just came out and I hadn't seen! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Dumb question on multi year funding. In principle if most grants are X years and each year we fund 1 X-year grant instead of X grants for their first year, after X years the total number of grants funded is the same, no? I feel I’m missing something obvious.
This one did:
Not disagreeing with that point, just noting that empirically a pretty large proportion of corn eventually ends up as food (meat, corn syrup, etc.)
A tiny percent is sweet corn which we eat directly. Another smallish percent is for corny syrup for food. A huge percent is animal feed to make meat which we also eat.
I legit lol’d. Well played.
The cut papyrus is not dead, as it can root from stem cuttings. Which would duplicate its genotype meaning evolutionarily it’s kicking crocodile butt. All while doing super efficient C4 photosynthesis. I call foul — I say somebody paid off the referees.
Don’t worry. 1) the woods often has internet and 2) eternal shame goes away as soon as the next smartass thing i’m sure everyone else will think is as witty as I do pops into my head.
Eventually of course motivating efforts by East and others to breed hybrid corn — a single genotype that could be planted in replicate and allow for selection per unit area.
A poorly understood chapter in this history of corn breeding. Selection for large ears — as opposed to yield per unit area — was wildly successful but came with extraordinary tradeoffs
By 1920 “falling corn” was the fifth most common cause of death of farmers in California.
This has been a p̶o̶p̶ top secret project. I know Tony (he is not my mom, however), but have been under a CDA (corn disclosure agreement). You can butter me up all you want, but I'm too salty to divulge secrets.
Sergio Perez Limon describing in #Zeavolution his MexMagic population to study local adaptation in maize. Pointing out that you can't make popcorn garlands with the reference genome 😂 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
I'd rather you just tell me something interesting. Or if it's unclear why, tell me why. But I've been guilty of writing sentences this way too! And my egregious excessive use of "Moreover," is nigh legendary...
Interestingly, your sentence didn't need to begin with that word.
Just discovered this wonderful adaptation of our maize moving map (figshare.com/articles/fig...) by @andikur.bsky.social .
I am SO THRILLED to share our first fully-lab lab paper!!!!!! Led by @hybridzones.bsky.social & @hagarsoliman.bsky.social, w/ a major assist from @pfschwarz.bsky.social!!!!!!!!!!!!! Read more below, if you're curious (you should be- it's AWESOME!!!!!!!)
link: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
I’m looking! (Alt text thanks to @arunsethuraman.bsky.social )
Weird. Missed this. Probable ramosa mutant. On top of that stressed plants mix male/female inflorescences
'HPC Carpentry will launch as a full lesson program on 1 September 2026.' carpentries.org/blog/2026/02...
Interesting focus on Snakemake/Maestro! I assume eventually they'll have a Nextflow too
🌿 Postdoc opportunity in plant evolutionary ecology/genetics!
My lab in the Dept. of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan is recruiting a postdoctoral researcher to start Fall 2026.
We study plant adaptation, using weeds as model systems.
#Postdoc #EcoEvo
Pls RT!
Not yet; check back in 15 min.
If c is for corn this could happen.
On the bright side, you're gaining on me percentage-wise!
Happy birthday. I'm sorry to say, however, that, like last year, this has been yet another unsuccessful attempt to be older than me :) Keep trying though!
Also worst drawings of corn I have ever seen on a cake.
That’s silly. It’s a sale not a monster house. People are just taking time to pay… with their souls.
MKado: a toolkit for McDonald-Kreitman tests of natural selection https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.02.709122v1
"The bathroom code is 4723"
"I don't understand, the door is unlocked"
"That's for the TP"