John Fowler (he/him)

The graphic features a background image of roots over a green gradient. The title says "Chris Topp Puts Down Roots at MSU PRI." There is a headshot of Chris Topp on the righthand side with the following text on the left, "Christopher N. Topp, Ph.D., Professor, Plant Resilience Institute, Department of Plant Biology, Department of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences, Michigan State University” and the MSU PRI logo underneath.

We're excited to welcome Christopher Topp to the Plant Resilience Institute! Dr. Topp uses powerful imaging tools to envision the future of sustainable agriculture, and he will soon bring his expertise in root biology to MSU. Read the full story: plantresilience.msu.edu/pri-news/202...

Just an absolutely horrific self own, depleting the US of amazing students from all over the world who contributed to what used to make America great: its diversity, its openness, and its leadership in education.

🧪Excited to co-present this @standupforscience.bsky.social event next week with UW's Dr. Ryan Kelly

We'll cover how to effectively engage in public comments, to help shape public policy at all levels, federal to local. Attend in person or virtually!

RSVP: act.standupforscience.net/events/power...

Nearly 20 Percent Fewer International Students Traveled to the U.S. in August The data shows the steepest decline in August international student arrivals since the pandemic.

The number of international students arriving in the U.S. in August fell by 19% this year compared with last year — the largest decline on record outside of the pandemic.

I have been trying to get this published as an op-ed, but I am going to post it here since I think it is timely in light of the "consent" extortion events.

Deafening Quiet from the Scientific Establishment

jeremymberg.github.io/jeremyberg.g...

1/14

KATANIN promotes cell elongation and division to generate proper cell numbers in maize organs Microtubule severing is essential for proper eukaryotic cell elongation and division. Here we show that the microtubule severing protein, KATANIN, is encoded by two genes in Zea mays (maize) called Di...

Excited to share this preprint on the microtubule severing protein Katanin, and its role in cell elongation and division in maize. First author Stephanie Martinez worked collaboratively with many folks to bring you this preprint. Check it out! 🔬🌽 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

this felt too informative not to share

Judge will hand down new TRO that "prohibits the relocation, federalization, or deployment of any National Guard under federal command" "within the state of Oregon"

BREAKING NEWS: We just secured a court order blocking the president’s order to deploy federalized National Guard troops to Portland when a federal judge granted our request for a Temporary Restraining Order. Read our statement.

#orpol #nationalguard #portland #portlandoregon

UMass Amherst Biology is recruiting a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the area of Plant Physiology. Deadline Nov 1. Please spread the word and apply!

careers.massachusetts.edu/mob/en-us/jo...

If you’re applying to your dream lab for an internship/PhD/postdoc, always send a second email 1-2 weeks after the first one if you don’t hear back.

I promise we will be grateful rather than annoyed. My email inbox is a disaster and I’m quite junior - and very few of us have secretarial support

This was fun; very much appreciate the interest and questions; Thanks @jghodge.bsky.social ! Happy for feedback or questions from anyone, BlueSky chat is easy!

"What is happening in this country is happening because science is bad for tyrants, and always has been"

In all the chaos, I would urge folks to remember that a lot of folks now don’t know when their next check will come.

The vast majority are good people who love this nation deeply, and many of them are still working despite not knowing when they’ll be paid

Have compassion.

Court Rules in AAUP v Rubio: Trump Admin Violated First Amendment The AAUP and partners sued to block the Trump administration from carrying out large-scale arrests, detentions, and deportations of noncitizen students and faculty members for ideological reasons.

Once again, it is *faculty*—not administrators—who brought this case and won. Including UC Faculty Association chapters of the AAUP.

In any other country, if federal agents fired upon journalists when unprovoked — what would we call it?

If federal agents marched down streets demanding papers — what would we say?

Authoritarianism — let’s not pretend it’s something else when it happens in our American cities.

This is a moment where all cis people need to be calling their elected officials and demanding they protect trans healthcare, even if it means shutting down the government

It doesn't matter if you live somewhere red or blue - everyone needs to hear this

Who wouldn't want to hear about the wonders of maize pollen? Looking forward to talking about this fun collaborative project with Molly Megraw's group, what can machine learning do with a pollen phenotyping dataset?

I attended a really inspiring talk by Jose Dinneny today as the Thornton-Massa speaker at Colorado State University. His vision for the future of agriculture with synthetic biology was really thought-provoking. It’s great to learn AND get inspired! @josedinneny.bsky.social @csuagbio.bsky.social

A young woman with dark hair is on a roller coaster. She is looking over her shoulder at the camera behind her, clearly screaming. Whether she is screaming from fear, excitement, or both is unclear.

Now out in @plantphys.bsky.social
"Illuminating Growth: Celebrating the Life and Legacy of Dr. Joanne Chory"
A summary of the recent Joanne Chory Symposium, which featured talks and photos from her former mentees.
doi.org/10.1093/plph...
(Photo shows an excited Joanne on a roller coaster).

Blooms supersized - Nature Biotechnology Nature Biotechnology - Blooms supersized

A tiny white-petalled weed beloved of plant biologists has received a CRISPR-fueled makeover, turning it into a supersized ruby-colored bloom www.nature.com/articles/s41...

every trans person I've spoken to is feeling the Drag Down right now. not everybody has fallen into despair but we're all feeling it creeping in around the edges, doing our best to fight it. things are bad. if you know a trans person, look after them.

Please share with anyone who cares about NSF support for graduate students and take 30 seconds to sign and leave a comment.

The deadline for the 2025 Graduate Research Fellowship Program is about one month away and literally no one can apply. #NSFGRFP

jasonjwilliamsny.github.io/grfp2025/

Announcing the 2025 Future Faculty Academy cohort! Congratulations to Dr. Arpita Yadav, Dr. Erika Moore-Pollard, Dr. Kirk Amundson, and Dr. Rajnandani Kashyap. See thread for their bios!

I hate this for the second years who had already been working on applications.

Also the USDA fellowship RFA has still not been issued for this year.

It is harder and harder to find fellowships to support the newest generation of scientists. 🧪

We are shortchanging our future.

Take literally two minutes and add your support! As a 1st gen college student this program helped send me into a PhD program and since I have seen dozens of amazing young scientists, including two from my lab, empowered by it. Report

Following the advice of @peiferlabunc.bsky.social & @senguptalab.bsky.social, I sent a thank-you email to my program officer at NIH. If you have interacted with POs at NIH or NSF, please do the same.

The sheer volume of work they have had to deal with in the last three weeks... boggles the mind!

An illustration of a person standing at the top of stairs that end, with text: To increase diversity in STEM, a foot in the door isn’t enough. We need better support.

"Talent and grit matter, but so do structure, transparency, and care." #ScienceWorkingLife https://scim.ag/4nCiPYg

BIOL 220 Autism has known causes and tylenol use is not one of them Dear Students One thing we as biologists can do is help our friends and families navigate complex biomedical issues. As we'll discuss later this term, autism is a complex set of different disorders lumped under a single label. 30 years ago its causes were unknown, but as we'll see, remarkable advances in human genetics have given us key insights. We also know, based on experiment, what does NOT cause autism. Large epidemiological studies have been done to test proposed causes. Here is an gold standard example: "Acetaminophen use during pregnancy was not associated with children’s risk of autism, ADHD, or intellectual disability in sibling control analysis." https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2817406 Links to an external site. We're now at the point where people with very responsible jobs are spreading lies about disease causation. It's our job to counter with facts. Mark Peifer

As scientists and educators, we can help our students and their families wrestle with complex issues. I just send this message to my Genetics class, and the relevant link to the study
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

I started writing (or at least officially publishing) about the prevalence of & ills associated with gatekeeping in academia in 2020 [ scholar.valpo.edu/jvbl/vol13/i... ]. I proposed an alternative of Groundskeeping. One day I need to share how much gatekeeping I've experienced in these efforts! 😭😂