Matt Johnson, PhD

A queen bumble bee (Bombus bifarius) foraging on a pale green and white Frasera speciosa flower, with her proboscis extended into a nectary. Her orange pollen basket is prominently visible on her hind leg. Photo credit: Jane Ogilvie.

Improving plant DNA #metabarcoding accuracy with ecological filters and #Angiosperms353: Field and pollen microscopy validation

New in #AppsPlantSci by Benkendorf, @sophietaddeo.bsky.social, Fant et al

bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... #botany #PlantScience #herbaria #ecology

Hey #Botany2026 we're actively looking for potential speakers at ALL experience levels for our proposed colloquium: Side-quest! – Level up your science!. If you have an interesting story, project, or idea to share that qualifies as a “Side-quest” we want to know about it!

More info below⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️

A dark-haired woman with an upturned nose, a white shirt, a ribbon and a plaid skirt holds up a piece of carboniferous plant material from her work desk, where she's been painting it with clear varnish to preserve it

A 1950s news article about Maxine Abbott's NSF grant, which notes that she was previously conducting her paleobotany research as a volunteer while at Cincinnati and working in a local department store office three days a week to pay research costs.

A black and white photo of a young Maxine Langford in the 1930s at Texas Tech, smiling at the camera from a bench. She's wearing a knee-length dress, a plaid short sleeved shirt, and glasses. She's clearly very small.

A photo of undergraduate Maxine Langford posing climbing in through the window of an abandoned stone building new Mexico, wearing field pants, boots, and a short sleeve shirt. It's a great look, honestly.

Dr. Maxine “Max” Abbott (née Langford) is an oft-forgotten paleontologist of early 20th century Texas. Born in the 1920s, this pint-sized paleobotanical powerhouse worked on the Carboniferous swamps of North America and the Cretaceous jungles of Texas.

(All photos from her papers at Sul Ross.)

a little boy is driving a red toy car on the street . Alt: a little kid is driving a red toy car on the street.

Updated tutorials for nQuack today. Want to predict ploidy level of sequence data? See this new tutorial on how to process and model data faster: mlgaynor.com/nQuack/artic...

Texas Tech chancellor limits academic mentions of transgender and nonbinary identities at five universities Advocacy groups say the new state law, presidential executive order and gubernatorial letter Tedd Mitchell cited do not prohibit classroom discussions of particular LGBTQ+ identities.

www.texastribune.org/2025/09/26/t...

Excited to share what I've been working on with the science community! Starting to get my PhD papers out as I get closer to graduating, and looking into next steps in my career. If anyone has any postdoc ideas, please reach out! 🙂🌱

New preprint from our lab - how miniaturized library prep drives down costs for target capture sequencing with minimal impact on recovery. Led by @madiraibullock.bsky.social and with two undergrad coauthors!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Is it possible to learn this power?

Maybe i’d be ok with higher APC if I knew where the money went. The current system relies on thousands of hours of unpaid labor in service of multibillion dollar corporations which is not better.

Effect of Monetary Incentives on Peer Review Acceptance and ... : Critical Care Medicine tested the impact of providing cash incentives to complete peer review assignments at Critical Care Medicine. DESIGN: Quasi-randomized, blinded, interventional study with an alternating treatment d...

Citation: Cotton et al., 2025 journals.lww.com/ccmjournal/a...

Interesting pilot study on paid peer review. From the thread, $250 US significantly increased "rate of conversion" for review invitations without decreasing a metric of review quality in a medical journal.

Are you a mammologist whose research involves natural history collections? Apply to be my colleague!

Assistant professor position with the Department of Biological Sciences and the Natural Science Research Laboratory at Texas Tech University.

sjobs.brassring.com/TGnewUI/Sear...

So excited to be co-leading this special issue! Cannot wait to see all the innovative ways target enrichment sequencing is being used!

Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions ☺️

brb writing a dichotmous key for types of power plants

So it's a lecture about peas, then?

Update - it's actually a video the smoke MOVES what

Generated slide idea for "Introduction to Plant Taxonomy, BIOL4302: Field Botany and Natural History Collections" featuring a large industrial plant with several stacks billowing smoke. Might actually be a nuclear power plant? Still, wtf Powerpoint

Yes thank you very much for the design idea, Powerpoint, that is exactly the right vibe for this lecture.

MSU Plant Bio is hiring a new herbarium director! Our herbarium is a wonderful resource on campus and I'm excited to have the opportunity to make it even better by bringing in a new director. Details here: plantbiology.natsci.msu.edu/job-postings...

Gotta show the full picture, though. Sometimes, I'm softly cursing at my phone.

Infographic showing drawings of sunflowers and sunflower parts. There are explanations to each type of flower within the sunflower inflorescence and their function

FREE TEACHING RESOURCE! 📣
I illustrated this poster as a project during the ComSciCon-ATL conference in 2024 on sunflowers and their unique inflorescence architecture. I am happy to share it here now! Feel free to download, use, and share!
You can also contact me for a higher resolution version 🌻

List of Major League Baseball pitchers who have thrown an immaculate inning - Wikipedia

How about: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...

Steel fridge with magnets and stickers, including We Are All Beautiful, Palo Duro Canyon, I <3 Lemurs, Roswell, and Pluto: Revolve in Peace

Got one in a place of honor on our fridge!

Tenure dossiers were invented by the Vogons.

No amount of record keeping prepared me for the surprise "no you needed to use this other obscure version of your annual reports" or "oh btw also include every syllabus" one week before the due date.

Me hugging a flowering yucca at White Sands National Park

When in New Mexico… #botany2025

Me hugging a saguaro

When in Arizona…
#botany2025

The youths taught me about the magic of 0.5x

Selfie of the lab in front of the entrance to Starr Resort in Tuscon, the location of Botany 2026. Saguaros in the background!

Hey #Botany2025 was so fun we’re ready for #Botany2026 … maybe we’ll wait for y’all here in Tuscon!

Me in a tie dye shirt hugging a tall pine tree

When in California… #botany2025

#UpAllNightWednesday at #Botany2025 will be at Street Bar!!! The first gay bar in Palm Springs 🏳️‍🌈 Be ready for karaoke!! 🎤 🕺 💃🏽 ✨

Nine botanists in bright green E.L. Reed Herbarium t-shirts at Botany2025

Botany July 27-31, 2025 Palm Springs CA Monday: Panicum! At the Disco Hall & Sideoats • Kate Subshrub • OK Glomus Tupackera Shakur • Postoak Malone • My Chemical Bromeliad Bryum Adams • Imagine Snapdragons • Moss Def • Green Day  RUBISCO Speedwagon • Blue Bonnet Jovi • Arctic Monkeyflowers Tuesday: Chapparal Roan Philadelphus Collins • Fleet Phloxes • Van Xanthisma Durian Durian • Guns ‘N’ Rosaceae • The Notorious G.D.C. • AsteraceDC Ceratodonovan • Scurfy • Dexy’s Midnight Stolons • Violet Femmes The Mammas and The Chaetopappas • Buddy Ilex • Smashing Curcurbita    Up All Night Wednesday Featuring PEAT Lab @ TTU: CorgiOne • JellyJam • Mycelial Network • Youthful Eyes Junior Ranger • Plant? • Tequilia Greg • Babagooya • Flora 

Opening night of #botany2025 means matching lab t-shirts!

Check out the alt text to read all of our "plant band" names!