E. Han Tan

Speed Breeding Transgenic American Chestnut Trees Toward Restoration The American chestnut (Castanea dentata) was a dominant, foundational forest canopy tree in eastern North America until an imported chestnut blight (caused by Cryphonectria parasitica) rendered it fu...

Science can be slow, but we continue make careful, incremental progress towards 🌱 🌰 restoration on many fronts -- this collaborative paper on speed breeding American chestnut is finally out this week: doi.org/10.1002/pld3...

Fuyu persimmons in a wooden bowl.

One of the things I miss most about being in the Bay Area are the prodigious amount of persimmons that are available this time of year, so it’s always so special to receive a box of these from friends to brighten up cold snowy days in the northeast 🌱 🧡 #Ebenaceae

I’m ashamed to say that I’ve been in this building for almost nine years (nine!!) and have only just realized that the stained glass feature by our ‘tree of life’ chandelier in the foyer has the scientific name of potato inscribed on it 🥔 🥔 🥔 — How did I miss this?!

Heart-shaped red potato.

Happy Friday! ❤️🥔

Some of the early generation diploid potatoes from today, 2nd or 3rd year in the field and putting out some interesting colored flesh 🌈

Purple Tomato tart, Purple Tomato nachos, Purple Tomato everything!

Hi @abbybuch.bsky.social @devjanee.bsky.social @rolyanharas.bsky.social @thelucalab.bsky.social !! 🫨

Flower of Canada violet, mostly white, green to yellow center with purple stripes.

Recent fav, Viola canadensis from the Great Smoky Mountains NP this summer

The Potato Became the First Vegetable Grown in Space with Help from Wisconsin ANTIGO, WI - Back in 1995, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and NASA partnered to help tubers become the first vegetable grown in space. Creating these “Quantum Tubers” involved “combining an agric...

What’s the first vegetable to grown in outer space?

If you know me, you know the answer has to be 🥔❕

www.andnowuknow.com/bloom/potato...

Two cats laying on carpet facing each other.

Sun moon, ying yang #cats composed for you today by Mia and Harry.

Figure from Yeager (1927) showing self-pruning phenotype of tomato.

Ok, TDIL and answered my own question -- from Yeager (1927)

Tomato plant with two flower spikes.

Tomato plant with two flower spikes.

Tomato plant with two flower spikes.

Has anyone encountered this tomato phenotype? It seems to be quite consistent and essentially self-pruning!

The shoot apical meristem terminates into a floral meristem instead of continuing to grow vines.

This was a volunteer seedling from vegetable bed that I randomly transplanted into a pot.

Nine photos of hand holding a piece of stone by a beach.

Any stone tool researchers out there? Beach find, this piece has a sharp edge and is perfectly grooved for holding with right hand as seen here. Material is unlike any rock found in the area.

Cat lounging on concrete entryway with wooden doors, framed with flowering red bougainvillea, looking annoyed at the photographer.

Also the #cats of #giliair is the same as cats the world over—finding the best spot for attention, showered with fresh 🌺 and still be annoyed with the hoomans.

Sunrise over a beach on Gili Air. With mountain range of Lombok including Mt Rinjani in the background.

Sunset on a beach in Gili Air, with a view of Gili Meno as well.

Sunrise and sunset at Gili Air, one of the islands off the coast of Lombok. Fun fact: we crossed Wallace’s line yesterday from Bali to get here, and this island has no motorized vehicles! To get around other than being on foot, you have a choice of bicycles, electric scooters or horse-drawn carts.

Sunset in St Andrews, seaside town in Scotland.

Sunset scene from St Andrews, earlier this week at a potato breeding and genetics meeting at the University of St Andrews. 🥔 🧬 🌱

Cat sitting on a “throne”.

We all need more cats in our timeline, no?

Blooms of mountain laurel on a trail.

Mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia) of the Great Smoky Mountain NP ~two weeks ago.

One of my favorite spring ephemerals, gaywings (Polygala paucifolia)!

Purple potato flowers in a greenhouse.

Back in the greenhouse today 🌱 🌱 and here are some good looking (and fragrant) inbred diploid potato flowers 🌸 🌸

Cat sleeping on checkout counter.

This cat was superrr helpful at the checkout counter in ‘cat city’ in Borneo. So… is this worthy of @bodegacats.bsky.social ?

A green potato seedling next to an albino potato seedling.

We’ve grown a lot of potato from botanical seed, but this is our first truly albino seedling. I know… I know… there are yeastie beasties on the plate but these were destined for soil, so it’s not an issue.

First frog sighting in ME of 2025 from 4 days ago, a cute spring peeper from our Maine Big Night survey. mainebignight.org

Leafy potato flower.

Today’s weird potato flower is one that looks like fasiflora (fa) mutants in tomato, but as usual, nothing is known about this mutation in tuber bearing Solanum.

Pub with the fa mutant in tomato:
www.researchgate.net/profile/Beat...

Potato flower cluster.

White potato flowers.

Pink potato flowers.

Here are some potato flowers from our crossing block this year! Getting ready to go.

Two cats sitting and loafing in two boxes.

One sits, one loafs. Two cats in two seemingly appropriately sized boxes for your consideration this evening.

A tray of crispy roasted potatoes.

Just so happened that I just made a batch of crispy roasted potatoes today for lunch. Potato variety used is a purple skin yellow flesh USDA ARS release called Peter Wilcox. So delish! 🥔 🌿

Grey cat sitting in box. Staring intently.

Sitting in a box, wishing everyone an insightful year of the snake which is supposed to bring renewal, wisdom and intelligence to us all 🙌🏽 🐍 🏮

Sleepy cat curled up.

Sleepy cat on grey blanket.

Two sleepy cats, snow and a fire is what we needed today.

A small treeshrew (grey squirrel like animal) sitting on a cloth handling bag after being weighed and measured for a scientific study.

The Levesque Lab is looking for a summer REU student to work with us in Sarawak, Malaysia. I’ll post the ad on Tuesday but the in meantime feel free to share this treeshrew as a place holder :)

umaine.edu/levesquelab/...