Stacey D. Smith

The cover of the July-August issue of Applications in Plant Sciences. The cover image shows an artist’s depiction of the application of large language models (LLMs) in plant metabolic research. Here, the stylized tree—with leaves bearing diverse phytochemical structures, superimposed on representations of scientific article abstracts—represents the organization of the vast array of known plant chemical–plant species connections within the context of the plant tree of life. Image credit: Jenna Armentrout created this image in Adobe Illustrator using hand-drawn materials.

The #AppsPlantSci special issue "Advances in analyzing and engineering plant metabolic diversity" is online!

Thanks to editors @kiratiedge.bsky.social, Gaurav Moghe, @iochromaland.bsky.social & Federico Roda

Check out the intro: bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... #PlantMetabolism

Martinez-Gomez Lab Plant Evo-Devo

A little belated but I've started a faculty position at Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology department at @ucsantabarbara.bsky.social. I'm absolutely stoked! I'll be recruiting at all levels and will be at #Botany2025

Reach out!

www.martinezgomezlab.com

🧪 UPDATE: All 63 House appropriators will meet **this Thursday** about science funding levels.

They'll deliberate on the proposed multi-billion dollar cut to NSF's budget ($9.0B --> $7.0B).

If you think that's bad for our country, here's who to call: appropriations.house.gov/about/member...

I'm back home with my dad and have thoughts about being an Indigenous scientist and academic. I'm writing this in real time so it might get disrupted and will have typos.

I am fairly successful by academic standards. I have a tenure track job, wrote papers, have grant funding, mentor students.

Novel production of structurally diverse and sticky defense metabolites on wild tomatillo fruits Plants have evolved a structurally diverse chemical repertoire to mediate various environmental interactions. Yet, little is known about the chemical complexity and metabolic pathways across many plan...

We identified a novel location for acylsugars, on the fruit surface, widely distributed across the Physalis genus. Paves the way for understanding the cell types and regulation responsible to fruit-surface localized acylsugars in collab with @iochromaland.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Sloan Lab Welcome! Our research focuses on the evolutionary process at the molecular level. In particular, we investigate how a mixture of natural selection and non-adaptive forces create and maintain the amazi...

Please share! Our lab is recruiting a PhD student to join us starting fall 2026. Our group is broadly interested in plant molecular evolution and comparative genomics. More info about our lab and grad programs at Colorado St. is available on our lab website.

sites.google.com/site/danielb...

Subcommittee Markup of the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act | United States Senate Committee on Appropriations United States Senate Committee on Appropriations

🧪 BREAKING (good news): Senate subcommittee says NO! to Trump's proposed slashes to NASA & NSF funding.

Today, the subcommittee said to keep NASA + NSF funding at $33.9 billion, the same as in FY24.

See 7:15 below. Full Senate appropriations committee meets tomorrow about it.

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a close up of a carnivorous plant with a bee inside of it Alt: a close up of a venus fly trap closing around an insect

North Carolina Botanical Garden (Chapel Hill, NC) is recruiting for a Conservation Botanist!

🎓 Relevant post-Bacc degree req'd
⌛ full time, 2.5-year grant funded position contingent upon additional funding
📨 apps due 7/18

unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/303...

#botanyjobs #plantconservationjobs

Four review requests in my inbox this morning. The one I accepted? Society journal.

Our Societies consistently reinvest in our communities in ways the glossies never will. And that makes me invest in them.

Crockett: How is it that you can explain that we still are running up the credit card and we have nothing to show for it except for the fact that we won't have food on the tables and we won’t have health care.

Indiana public colleges cut almost 20% of degrees Public Indiana colleges and universities have eliminated 19 percent of their degree programs to meet requirements added to the state’s budget, according to the Commission for Higher Education.

So, here it is. Thanks to a new state law that was NEVER DEBATED, Indiana University has committed itself to abolishing majors in African-American/African Diaspora Studies: American Studies; Art History; French; Italian; Religious Studies etc. DOZENS of majors. www.ipm.org/news-section...

In short, no wonder fungal infections are so hard to treat. If selection pressure favors resistance, they seem to have multiple ways to do it.

But there are tons of other resistant strains that have been recovered from clinical cases (that is, patients) and they don't have these same mutations. They resist drugs with other genes and other mutations.

In other words, geneticists have been studying particular genes targeted by antifungals (mainly azoles) and particular mutations in those genes. And all in the lab rat strain of Candida albicans.

My yeast genomics grad student Kyle and his collaborators at the Pasteur just posted our GWAS study -- the cool takehome is that the variants involved in resistance in diverse Candida strains are generally NOT what has been studied in lab strains 🫣
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Full video here, originally shared by DW. What Jeremy says is exactly right—clear, urgent, and deeply important. Cuts to science affect everyone, sooner or later, everywhere. Illness knows no ideology, no borders. This concerns us all. Watch, reflect, share, discuss.

bsky.app/profile/deni...

Dr. Rocío Deanna with shoulder-length wavy brown hair wearing a black sleeveless top stands in front of a presentation screen. The screen displays a colorful slide with circular diagrams and text.

🌿 Meet Dr. Rocío Deanna,@rociodeanna.bsky.social, a botanist tracing nightshade evolution from ancient fossils to modern ecosystems! Her work bridges paleobotany & phylogenetics to unlock Solanaceae secrets.

wp.me/pdRZhH-lYF

#Botany #PlantScience 🧪

Will the Senate Save NIH? Rescuing biomedical research is every bit as important as saving Medicaid.

It seems that only the science community is noticing that NIH and NSF budgets are cut 40% and 55% in the budget bill, respectively. If you live in Maine, West Va, Pennsylvania, Alabama, or Louisiana, CALL YOUR SENATOR as they could make a difference. See below.

prospect.org/politics/202...

I remember being anxious as a junior scientist trying to introduce myself to senior people at meetings. Now I'm one of the senior people, I guess. Consider this your invitation to come introduce yourself if we haven't met. #Evol2025

I ❤️ Systematics #Evol2025

As far as feel-good science, this project was collaboration for the win. A few years ago I was wondering if this dream of dating nightshades with all the fossils and all the traits would work & then Rocio and I started working with Ixchel and the rest is history. And of course this was #NSF-Funded!

THERE ARE THE CUTEST FOSSILS! Maybe you just learned about elaiosomes and their relationship to ants at the SSB presidential address -- co-author Rocio Deanna found a fossil seed with a chonky elaisome still attached. (maybe this is the only fossil elaiosome? idk) AND

Friends at #Evol2025! Tomorrow at 11:30am in the Macro section, Dr. Ixchel Gonzalez-Ramirez is presenting our new timetree for nightshades. Thanks to her, our total-evidence dating models discrete & continuous morphological characters & allows different div dynamics across geologic periods. PLUS

Protect transgender scientists Transgender and gender nonconforming (TGnC) people are a primary target of the Trump administration. Multiple executive orders seek to erase TGnC protections; mandate denial of gender identity; and ba...

Protect transgender scientists | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Screenshot of a tweet (on the website formerly known as Twitter) from the NSF which says "Today, NSF announced an add’l 500 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program awardees for the 2025-2026 cohort, bringing the total to approx 1,500. #NSFGRFP supports grad students as they pursue their dreams, build STEM skills, & become the next generation of innovators & leaders."

A small piece of good news. #SaveTheNSF 🧪 ⚛️ 🎢 #AcademicSky #NSFGRFP

Reminder that SSE members in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, India, and 152 low-income countries around the world can still get FREE registration for the virtual Evolution meeting! Please share with your colleagues: www.evolutionsociety.org/index.php?mo...

The Mesquite icon shown, as a Mesquite leaf against a black background, and as a leave against the sun and a blue sky.

Mesquite 4 beta released! Many new features, esp. phylogenomic. Check out the trailer and longer video on the home page: www.mesquiteproject.org, and use the download link there to get a copy.

Feedback welcome! Ask and discuss on our new Google Group (groups.google.com/g/mesquite-p...).

They wanted to pass this evil budget to take away healthcare from millions earlier today. It’s still stuck in the rules committee cause House Dems introduced over 500 amendments and we are lined up to debate on them. Delaying is important. Keep up the pressure on these Congressional Republicans.

Amidst all the posts about how NSF funds the basic science that (eventually) leads to marketable products, its role in funding data infrastructure is getting lost.

The GSS (1972), ANES (late 1960s), and PSID (1968) are rounding error in the discretionary budget but vital national resources.

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