Olivia Carmo

I am looking forward to sharing a bit of our research on #seeds and #desiccationtolerance in the first WALII Symposium!🤩🧐🤓🌱
#plantresearch #plantscifyi

David Jones PhD manuscript on how mild heat stress (experienced during fever episodes in most malaria infections)changes the cytoadhesion behavior of parasite infected red blood cells is now online and reviewed in eLife.

elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...

Manipulating condensation of thermo-sensitive SUF4 protein tunes flowering time in Arabidopsis thaliana Meyer et al. present evidence that protein liquid-liquid phase separation may serve as a physical mechanism for coordinating plant development and flowering time with environmental seasonality.

Our SUF4 condensation paper is finally out! cell.com/cell-reports... Thank you to everyone who has scientifically, mentally, and emotionally supported my co-authors and me over the years. Below is a summary of the work-- we hope you enjoy our findings!

Active transport enables protein condensation in cells The force generated by active transport modulates protein condensation.

Biomolecular condensates are critical for organizing cellular contents, but most studies focus on phase separation driven by salt, pH, or temperature.
But what if intracellular movement also matters?
Here, we explore motility-induced condensation in the cell.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Now published! Big congrats to first author @gginell.bsky.social

We are actively working improving/updating various aspects of FINCHES; don't hesitate to reach out if you run into issues, have questions.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

#NSF had a 11am meeting. By 11:07, I received a message from our program officer stating, "the entire Division of Equity for Excellence in STEM has just been dissolved and the entire staff fired."

This attack on science, research and academic freedom is unconscionable!
www.savensf.com/take-action

Amid DOGE-induced turmoil, National Science Foundation in crisis The $9 billion agency, which exists solely to fund researchers, projects and facilities outside its Alexandria, Virginia, headquarters, is hitting reverse on its mission.

🚨 Science nerds: TIME FOR ACTION!! 🧪

The past two weeks have been horrendous for NSF. Will only continue to get worse, with likely more hits and fuckery today & tomorrow.

See this new @carolynyjohnson.bsky.social article for where we are today (gift link).

🧵 But then most importantly...

My NSF PRFB on the genetics of female polymorphism in hummingbirds was terminated yesterday.

I don't have much to say, I'm just sad. We've discovered so much, and could have gone so much further.

If anyone else is in the same boat, esp postdocs, please reach out, it would be good to connect.

Thank you, @waliianhydro.bsky.social ! It's an honor to represent fellow trainees and serve the WALII community. I cherish this community so much, and I'm so proud of all the resources we continue to invest in trainees and ECRs. #drytosurvive #NSForever

UnigeneFinder: An Automated Pipeline for Gene Calling From Transcriptome Assemblies Without a Reference Genome For most species, transcriptome data are much more readily available than genome data. Without a reference genome, gene calling is cumbersome and inaccurate because of the high degree of redundancy i...

We are pleased to announce our new paper "UnigeneFinder: An Automated Pipeline for Gene Calling From Transcriptome Assemblies Without a Reference Genome" is officially in press at @plantdirectj.bsky.social!

Available here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

I got an email yesterday afternoon that my NSF SPRF Postdoctoral Fellowship was terminated. My grant focused on testing interventions to address online misinformation and I was 8 months into a two year appointment.

Happy to share this super interesting perspective we wrote on desiccation tolerance research. Congratulations to the great team of researchers involved!
#plantresearch #desiccation

Jacob Suissa and I wrote a #book about #ferns! It's beautifully illustrated by the amazing artist Laura Silburn. Will be released in May and you can preorder from Amazon. We hope this book could help you forget all the bad things happening on Earth right now. More here: mailchi.mp/btiscience/f...

Life on the dry side: a roadmap to understanding desiccation tolerance and accelerating translational applications - Nature Communications Desiccation tolerance is an extreme adaptation to water limitation. Here the authors envisage a roadmap to advance desiccation tolerance research, highlight key knowledge gaps, call for standardizatio...

our perspective on desiccation tolerance research is out in
@naturecomms.bsky.social. with nearly forty authors from around the world spanning diverse career stages and disciplines, this work represents a shared vision for the field. let us know what you think!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

University of California sets hiring freeze in anticipation of Trump cuts The University of California has imposed a system-wide hiring freeze and made additional cuts, its president said on Wednesday, as part of efforts to try to mitigate the impact of sharp cuts in federal funding.

University of California announced a systemwide hiring freeze. This affects not 1 but 10 campuses (including UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco, UC San Diego among others) plus 3 national labs with impact on medical and scientific research and local economies.

www.reuters.com/world/us/uni...

A flier advertising a summer intern position at the Boothby Lab. Investigate the material and biophysical properties that allow for survival and protection in the solid, desiccated state while working on a citizen science initiative to identify the taxonomy and geographical distribution of tardigrades. The position is for the Summer of 2025 and the application window closes March 31st, 2025.

The deadline to submit applications is approaching!🗓️

Explore life’s extreme limits in the Boothby Lab! Work with tardigrades to uncover how organisms survive without water.

To Apply: bit.ly/BoothbyLab

An online, student-led symposium series. Radicle Science. A teach-in for plant scientists organising for political impact. Plant science is political. Come join us for a discussion on plant scientists' involvement in politics throughout history and learn how you can play a role in today's political landscape. Featuring Dr. Kevin Bird. March 25th, 8-9am PDT , 11am- noon EDT. Open to all, come be a part of it!

Join us March 25th at 8am Pacific daylight time, 11am Eastern, for an online teach-in for #PlantSci entists organising for political impact.
Learn how you can play a role in today's political landscape!
Free registration at
rootandshoot.org/a-teach-in-f...

Do you LOVE organelles??
Well I am THRILLED to announce that Nellie has been published in @naturemethods.bsky.social!

Nellie a fully automated pipeline for organelle segmentation, tracking, and hierarchical feature extraction in 2D, 3D, timelapse, multichannel live-cell microscopy

🧵1/N

My colleague @rnareylab.bsky.social wrote this editorial for her hometown area newspaper. Well done & more please! www.heraldbanner.com/opinion/colu...

Graduate Reductions Across Biomedical Sciences (2025)

There’s a google doc trying to keep track of funding/grad school admission/hiring freezes & status please share 🧪 docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

What the shit

"For FY26 we are told about plans to reduce the NSF budget by 50%-75% - such reduction will mean no new awards for at least a year, elimination of divisions, merging of programs."

nanoscale.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-...

Military base threatens Galápagos Islands

WHAT. Ecuador's government recently authorized a U.S. military base on the Galápagos Islands. NO. No no no no no no noooooooo NO 🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Legitmately thrilled to share our latest work, in which @fernpizza.bsky.social solved an experimental challenge in plasmid biology as old as the field: measuring how plasmids compete and evolve within individual cells!

Gov. Mills: I’ll comply with the state and federal laws

Trump: We are the federal law. You better do it because you’re not going to get any federal funds.

Gov Mills: See you in court

As many of you know, ~170 Program Officers at #NSF were fired on Tuesday, including a number that worked in Divisions important to the EEB community (e.g., DEB and GEO/OPP).
1/3

Just look at these paragraphs from the AP story.

Hegseth called Brown unqualified solely because he's Black. Then they fired him... and replaced him with a white guy so indisputably unqualified that he requires a Presidential waiver.

This is what "merit" means to them.

apnews.com/article/trum...

Genuinely incredible piece of reporting here that makes the story completely unimpeachable. They sat in the back of an immigration courtroom and watched the guy pull out his personal phone and post to his racist account DURING the hearing!

Upon learning that yesterday would be my last day as a program officer at the National Science Foundation, I shared this parting message with my colleagues. The next few months will be frenetic and stressful for them. Here are some things that you can do to help them with the mission ahead. (1)

Trump falsely claimed “fraud” to attempt to steal the 2020 election from the people—he failed.

Now, he’s falsely claiming “fraud” to steal the government from the people—he’s succeeding.

The analysis below proves Trump’s DOGE is ideologically targeted, meant to consolidate exec power.👏 Adam.

The National Science Foundation fired all its experts.

The National Science Foundation. Fired. All of its. Experts.

And they weren't even told to! The leadership worked toward the Fuhrer and went beyond the cuts demanded of them in anticipation of many, many more firings—up to *half* its staff.