Plants and Pipettes

It’s the best time to start a sourdough and listen to us talk about plant biology. Let the dough rise and watch your plants move in response to light and/or gravity!

Paper of the week: Wu, Y.; Xie, J.; Wang, L.; Zheng, H. Circumnutation and Growth of Inflorescence Stems of Arabidopsis thaliana in Response to Microgravity under Different Photoperiod Conditions. Life 2020, 10, 26.

On the quality of pre-prints and peer reviewed articles

Viruses can be our friends

Make code greener

The Montreal protocol works. Guardian on the story.

Make website code green

The lion’s mane moth is cute

The mystery of the Madagascar cats

Our opening and closing music is Caravana by Phillip Gross

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We’re trying something new in these trying times. Every other week we’ll have a deep dive into a new paper and on off-weeks, like this one, we’ll talk about some of our other segments. So practice social distance and enjoy our new episode!

Joram’s favourite plant is Pando, the largest organism in the world. It’s made from the poplar relative Populus tremuloides, which creates clonal colonies through their root systems.

Check out Ethel Sargant. Here is the article about her work.

The normalcy bias makes everything more complicated right now.

Eel liquor is a thing (and it’s not what you think it is)

Make your own hand sanitiser according to WHO instructions.

Copepods have great thighs

Listen to club music from the comfort of your own home (and support your favourite artists!)

Corona simulator by the Washington Post

Advanced replication study with shadow groups

Tiny dionsaur found in amber

Please explain what “I don’t shag avocados” means. For real. Write us. We need to know.

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Our opening and closing music is Caravana by Phillip Gross

Until next time!

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This week, it’s all about viruses. We feel anxious about the corona virus, we talk about viruses in Maize and we even listen to viral music.

• Paper of the week: Monjane, A. L., Dellicour, S., Hartnady, P., Oyeniran, K. A., Owor, B. E., Bezuidenhout, M., … Martin, D. P. (2020). Symptom evolution following the emergence of maize streak virus. ELife, 9. doi: 10.7554/elife.51984

Whorled sunflower

• Whorled sunflower
• The study by the PhD student
• A story on the research

Catharina Helena Dörrien (1717 – 1795)

• Found her through @365botanywomen
• Her paintings on a museum website
• A musical about her life

Cryptomnesia

• wikipedia article
• 99% invisible episode on Who let the dogs out

Fun Stuff

• The sound of Corona
• earrumbling
• turtles like the smell of plastic
• woman waters plastic succulent
• bees like cannabis
• in praise of editing
• cycling all streets in london

Meet Ryker, the best worst service dog

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Our opening and closing music is Caravana by Phillip Gross

Until next time!

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I hope you’re doing well and the ever-present Corona virus hasn’t reached you or your loved ones. While conferences and such are cancelled, we remain unaffected as we both dwell in our homes with little to no contact to the outside world, only connected by a remote podcasting session.

Hybrid Cyanobacterial-Tobacco Rubisco Supports Autotrophic Growth and Procarboxysomal Aggregation, Douglas J. Orr, Dawn Worrall, Myat T. Lin, Elizabete Carmo-Silva, Maureen R. Hanson, Martin A.J. Parry, Plant Physiology Feb 2020, 182 (2) 807-818; DOI: 10.1104/pp.19.01193

Joram’s favourite plant is Silene stenophylla, a plant that was resurrected from the permafrost.

May Nango researched together with other scientists the life of early Australian humans. Here is the most recent publication in nature, here is an article about the paper, here is a previous story and a wikipedia article about the region.

Appeal to novelty

Don’t be that guy: a guide to asking non-stupid questions

Corona Virus update

• Covid-19 is worse than the flu
• Safe information on the virus and the outbreak
• Best 20s songs to wash your hands to (and on twitter even more)
• Alternatives to shaking hands

1 billion year old fossil found (it’s a plant)

First animal that doesn’t need oxygen

Australian fires are more likely due to climate change

Salamanders glow under blacklight

write weird poetry from your tweets

China sends ducks to fight locusts

Keas are really smart, a new study shows.

Cats are also smart

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Our opening and closing music is Caravana by Phillip Gross

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We’re finally back together – even though it’s just for one night. We celebrate by recording a podcast for you and we talk about sex changing trees, the tiniest plants and lots of fun stuff.

Paper of the week: Blake‐Mahmud, J. and  Struwe, L..  2020.  When the going gets tough, the tough turn female: injury and sex expression in a sex‐changing tree. American Journal of Botany  107( 2):  339– 349.

Tegan’s favourite plant is Wolffia. Make sure to check out the Charms of Duckweed!

Joram presents the life and work of Wanda Zablocka. DeepL is your friend on this source material.

Tegan presents the Lake Wobegon effect.

Warsaw Palm

UK minister for universities “promoted to be a better dad“

Sleeping less than 6 hours per night will lead to cognitive abilities similar to someone who hasn’t slept in two days.

Skydaddy Jeff should fix amazon before greenwashing himself with large donations to fight the climate crisis.

1/ A short #Tweetorial on how to (not) present a “busy” PowerPoint slide. The “Where’s Waldo?” of Academic Medicine.

We’ve all seen it, and we all grumble about it, but how can we do better? Here are a few pointers I've seen and received over the years… pic.twitter.com/Br3Y7Rw5QD

Scientists their emojis.

Wrap-around spiders are as terrifying as they sound.

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Our opening and closing music is Caravana by Phillip Gross

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Would you eat crickets? Joram says no, Tegan, however, is already munching away any insect that crosses her path. Maybe it’s best to stick to plant protein, after all.

Embryonic photosynthesis primes plant growth, Ayala Sela, Urszula Piskurewicz, Christian Megies, Laurent Mene-Saffrane, Giovanni Finazzi, Luis Lopez-Molina
Plant Physiology Feb 2020, pp.00043.2020; DOI: 10.1104/pp.20.00043

Joram’s favourite plant is Espostoa frutescens as it absorbs ultrasound from bats to make its flowers stand out.

Tegan presents a great essay by Brandon Taylor that you absolutely should check out.

Don’t draw circles around random clusters, or you might fall for the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy.

The paper about women and cats has been removed – for now.

The growing inaccessibility of science (now accessible)

Dance your PhD

Voting women into local councils increases the chance of discussion about family politics (source in German)

What to do when you don’t trust your own data anymore

Also check this article about the retraction of the spider papers, Elisabeth Bik’s account on image forensics, and this website for following up retracted studies.

Fake google maps traffic jams – be advised, there has been criticism of the way the artist presented his work. It probably doesn’t work as easy as he portrays it.

Coyotes and badgers hunt together

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Our opening and closing music is Caravana by Phillip Gross

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Have you ever done an experiment for longer than 2 years? How about 12 years? Today, we’re talking about an extermely longterm experiment that might shed light on the origin of eukaryotes. Plus: a ton more…

This week we had two special days, first up was #WomenInSTEM day on Tuesday, which brought us this beautiful tweet, followed by Darwin Day. Did you know that Darwin was an eager botanist? Now you know.

This week’s paper is Imachi, H., Nobu, M.K., Nakahara, N. et al. Isolation of an archaeon at the prokaryote–eukaryote interface. Nature 577, 519–525 (2020).

Tegan’s favourite plant is the Mongongo.

Joram presents the work of Deborah Charlesworth. Here is an interesting interview with her and her husband.

Tegan presents the Cheerleader effect where individuals are perceived as more attractive when in a group. Here is how Barney Stinson explains it.

Study on how conservatives are physiologically different. And the replicate that show that conservatives and liberals are not physiologically different.

Silencing of academics by their universities

An important message about science communication in a review on the link between genotype and phenotype.

Study shows that Golden Rice is safe (no shit sherlock)

Robert Fortune invented the glass cases to transport plants in the 1830s which enabled plant trade (and theft) across the globe, solidifying Britain’s colonial power. Watch out, glorification of colonialism ahead.

Kollabtree brings the gig economy to science (Joram: ; Tegan: )

Low Tech Magazine summarizes at bit over a year of a solar powered server

The eco gender gap: why is saving the planet seen as women’s work?

Cats are where the women are (according to a study in China)

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Our opening and closing music is Caravana by Phillip Gross

Until next time!

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This is a long episode because we have so much to tell you. Luckily for you, technology has your back. This episode is best consumed through the use of chapter marks, smart playback and 2x playback speed. Unless you really like us, then there is so much more for you to enjoy.

Paper of the week: Xiang, Y., Huang, S., Huang, T.-Y., Dong, A., Cao, D., Li, H., … Duan, H. (2020). Superrepellency of underwater hierarchical structures on Salvinia leaf. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 201900015.

Joram’s favourite plant is the snowdrop. Here is the wiki on the Pusztai Affair.

Tegan presents the life and work of Ynes Mexia whose life would make a great biopic because she was so badass.

Joram presents the Law of the Instrument bias where overfamiliarity with a tool results in the overuse of said tool while disregarding all other options. Bonustrack

This book on Weird Parenting Wins by Hillary Frank is great

First genomic study of schizophrenia in African people turns up broken genes

Succulent Smuggling

Update on the Corona Virus

Bee gut bacteria modified to be helpful symbiont. Also check out this article on the story.

Big time racist is the butt of a joke that took too much effort

People won’t trust unkind science

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Correct Horse Battery Staple

This Cat does not exist

This person does not exist

Fat owl

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Our opening and closing music is Caravana by Phillip Gross

Until next time!

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What are you doing with your life? Are you having a good time? You’re about to because this here is another episode of the best podcast about plants and pipettes you’ll hear all day. This, is plants and pipettes – the podcast.

Try this non-privileged ice breaker: What is the most boring fact about yourself?

The paper of the week is: Flood, P.J., Theeuwen, T.P.J.M., Schneeberger, K. et al. Reciprocal cybrids reveal how organellar genomes affect plant phenotypes.Nat. Plants6, 13–21 (2020).

I am happy to say that our paper on reciprocal cybrids in Arabidopsis is now online, it has been 10 years in the making, here is the story behind the research 1/16https://t.co/KOyTDBTXv8

Tegan’s favourite plant genus is Prasophyllum. This is the post by the Australian government about the threatened species.

Joram presents the life and work of Sophia Jex-Blake.

Tegan present the Von Restorff Effect

Change what you eat and not where it comes from

The Coronavirus brings researchers together in the fight against the disease. Buzzfeed collects misinformation about the outbreak.

This play-do cell is too cute.

Hey, @ThePlantCell, I made a plant cell! Ok, to be fair there is some “artistic license” going on in my version. To take slices I use something more like a guillotine than a microtome, they come out much straighter than when I “hand-section”. pic.twitter.com/6OIHbnDRMs

Penguin poo is pink

Production value and video likeability

Antifragile is a word

This is a fox in Joram’s garden

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Our opening and closing music is Caravana by Phillip Gross

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Have you heard about division planes in growing leaves? Well, you should have, because we literally talked about this yesterday on the blog. If you’re not doing your homework, I don’t see why we should put in an effort to educate you. Just kidding, we repeat everything that was written yesterday (and more!)

Paper of the week is also yesterday’s blog post: Whitewoods, C. D., Gonçalves, B., Cheng, J., Cui, M., Kennaway, R., Lee, K., … Coen, E. (2020). Evolution of carnivorous traps from planar leaves through simple shifts in gene expression. Science, 367(6473), 91–96.

Joram’s favourite plant is Puya raimondii. Here is the story about the early flowering plant from the gardens in Berkeley.

Tegan presents the life and work of George Washington Carver

Joram says bye-bye to the Sunk Cost Fallacy

Yay, more funnel web spiders!

Xenobots are coming to get us

Mapping the dynamics of research networks in ecology and evolution using co-citation analysis (1975–2014)

Araby Comic on Arabidopsis research

Correlative three-dimensional super-resolution and block-face electron microscopy of whole vitreously frozen cells (on bioRxiv)

6 Reasons for Researchers to use twitter, even if you believe you don’t have anything to say (because you probably still do)

Collective nouns: supernatural and cats

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Our opening and closing music is Caravana by Phillip Gross

Until next time!

Support Us!