Cameron Stern

Figure 1: Steps with representative photographs of the flower color phenotyping pipeline. A) We exported all research-grade iNaturalist observations of Monarda fistulosa from GBIF. B) We used GPT-4o to classify each image as to whether it contained a flower. C) We trained a Roboflow semantic segmentation model on a subset of images and applied the trained model to extract “flower” pixels from each image in the dataset. D) We calculated the geometric median of each set of extracted pixels to represent the flower color phenotype from each image, and we paired this phenotype with the observation’s iNaturalist metadata for spatial analysis.

Figure 2: Spatial summary of Monarda fistulosa flower colors across North America. A) Map of the color of M. fistulosa flowers. Each square is a 200km x 200km cell with the color corresponding to the average median CIELAB color value of each observation in the cell. The dotted line denotes -100° longitude, separating eastern and western regions of the range. B) Boxplots summarizing LCh color components west and east of -100° longitude, with each box showing the median and interquartile range, and with the color of each box reflecting the geometric median CIELAB value from west and east, respectively.

New preprint out today! A really fun collaboration with @shchurch.bsky.social and Robin Hopkins in which we study flower color variation in Monarda fistulosa using iNaturalist data. We process >40,000 images and use them to phenotype flower color in >16,000 observations: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Available now in @asn-amnat.bsky.social ! Taking on some big-scale natural history: processed >40k @inaturalist.bsky.social images of Monarda fistulosa using computer vision to query for flower presence and phenotype flower color: doi.org/10.1086/739413

Gettin amongst the sedges now, this is #Mesomelaena preissii, which lacks the usual second long inflorescence bract that give the genus the name semaphore sedge!

Two more yellow-legged hornet queens found in Aukland's Glenfield brings total to nine Yellow-legged hornets are an invasive predator species, and a danger to local honey and wild bees.

Two more yellow-legged hornet queens found in Aukland's Glenfield brings total to nine

Daily dose of micro-rose propaganda ✨

No road in sight but there is a roadside tea tree #Leptospermopsis erubescens! I mean I feel like this stunning species needs a better common name! It’s an extremely widespread species and I never fail to be amazed by the display a shrubland of them can put on!

Come and join us here in Cambridge! Applications open for a new faculty position, for a researcher in computational and/or theoretical biology, based jointly in Genetics and Mathematics. Happy to answer questions about research, teaching and working here.

www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/faculty...

3 UMAPs showing RNA, ATAC, or Joint of potato stolon tips single cell omics dataset. Dots colored by cell cluster.

Single Cell Multiomics of Potato Stolons Reveals Parallels to Shoot Apical Meristems in Arabidopsis

From: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
#PlantScience

Congratulations on a PhD to Dr. Swapna Subramanian!!

Antirrhinum flower shape: unravelling gene expression across developmental axes and boundaries https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.10.687484v1

Australia’s unprecedented toxic algal bloom has a surprise culprit A relatively unknown species is producing a notorious neurotoxin, devastating sea life

Don't mess with Karenia cristata. She's bad news, like her sister in Florida. #HAB 🐟 🌊 🔬 🦠 www.science.org/content/arti...

Same. Wish I could be with my flowers

Crossing blooms is my happy place 💚🌺

Two really cool PhD positions available with Christina Barragan on Plant Pathogen evolution!

Our dept. just moved to a brand new building with great facilities and we have an absolutely amazing team!

Done, thanks! Starter pack getting full, love to see it. go.bsky.app/Q9QiX9C

Hemant Mehta quote tweeting Acyn. Acyn tweets, “Trump: ‘Nobody knows what a magnet is.’” Hemant’s response, “This is what happens when you fire all the scientists.”

I’m sharing because this gave me a chuckle

Are you looking for a PhD in Plant Science? Check our our project on barley canopy architecture. Combine genetics and physics to understand how awns influence barley grain development. Find out more here: lnkd.in/eWhWammJ Apply by 14th December. #PhDPosition
#PlantSci @instmolplantsci.bsky.social

Photograph of an Eastern Spinebill on a puya flower spike. The bird is a small, slender honeyeater in black, orange, brown, and white, with bright red eyes and a long curved black beak. The puya flowers are teal with orange anthers, and the spike dwarfs the diminutive bird.

Same subject, wider angle showing how small the bird is in relation to a cluster of the puya flowers.

Same subject, but cropped to and focused on the bird's face, showing its bright red eye reflecting the sun, and orange pollen around its neres and on the end of its beak. It is poking its tongue out which appears forked but is more like a brush, for soaking up nectar.

I returned to Mt Tomah yesterday. The wattlebirds left the Puya flowers unguarded for a few minutes and this Eastern Spinebill managed to slip in under the RADAR.
#birds

I love the aesthetic of this process. Very steampunk. I wish there were more models of gene guns and a healthy ecosystem of industrial designs. The DIY ones have charm, but also ample room for really cool innovations in this space, esp now that regulations are back to pre-2019.

Battle between Trump and universities hurting scientific research in need of federal funding Federal research funding to universities has fueled breakthroughs for years. The White House is pressuring universities to align with the president's political agenda, or risk losing their funding.

Very well done story on 60 Minutes about the harms of grant terminations and freezes at Harvard with Joan Brugge, Don Engbar, David Liu, and a very compelling young cancer patient, now cured with Liu's technology.

Transcript and video here

www.cbsnews.com/news/researc...

Cute day of superb parrot babies 😍

'Winning the race': How China plans to meet its 2030 renewables target by the end of this month While Australia debates the merits of going nuclear and frustration grows over the slower-than-needed switch to solar and wind power, China's renewables rollout is breaking all the records.

China is installing the wind and solar equivalent of five large nuclear power stations per week
www.abc.net.au/news/science...

I discovered a new Australian native bee, but there are still hundreds we need to identify The discovery of a horned native bee that pollinates a rare plant highlights how little we know about Australian pollinators.

A new species of native leaf cutter bee, Megachile lucifer, has been described in Western Australia. This is one of an estimated 500 currently undescribed native #bees in Australia

#ausinverts #wildoz #pollinators #nature #inverts

theconversation.com/i-discovered...

A small yellow orchid with green leaves.

A flower with white petals and purple spots, with green foliage in the background.

A close-up image of a plant in bloom, featuring a strikingly dark purple and blue flower against a backdrop of lush green leaves.

A vibrant display of purple flowers growing from a fleshy, green-leafed plant in a terracotta pot, situated in a greenhouse environment.

🌿 This Week 🌿
We were thrilled to welcome @plantlifeuk.bsky.social and @channel4news.bsky.social to celebrate the Fen Orchid - brought back from the brink of extinction!
See our latest Plant Picks and don’t miss #CambridgeBotanicLights: https://www.botanic.cam.ac.uk/cambridge-botanic-lights-2025/

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picture of the Schornacklab team

Plz RP. Come join us at @slcuplants.bsky.social @cam.ac.uk to study effector-targeted plant processes impacting plant cell biology and development.
www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/post-do...
www.schornacklab.net

Filmmaker Ken Burns discusses why the Trump administration killed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting with John Avlon: "It'll hurt mostly rural communities — maybe that's their intention. There'll be news deserts."

Ken Burns drops some knowledge: "People always complain in our, in our divided, dialectical, preoccupied world that, you know, oh, you're taking away my history. No, we're not. We're just pulling back and we're just saying, there are a lot more people here than you think."

“We are truly putting the brakes on scientific innovation in this country at a time when our ostensible adversary, China, is going faster and faster and faster,” says Harvard scientist Don Ingber. “If we can’t be the leader, we’re going to be the follower.” cbsn.ws/4hOpWuW

“It’s astounding what research can do and what people can do with the resources their given”

After leukemia treatments failed, Alyssa Tapley, at age 13, was told she would die. Then, doctors tried an experimental gene-edited therapy. She became the first human to try the treatment made possible by U.S. federal funding. Now 16, she’s cancer-free and planning her future.