Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Chloee McLaughlin

Taylor Mitchell Brown @tmitchellbrown.bsky.social · 20h

Scientists recently found two evolutionarily distinct mushrooms converged to produce the same psychedelic molecule—psilocybin.

The “surprising” results underscore the significance of the hallucinogen but leave questions about its ultimate purpose.

#Psilocybe #MagicMushrooms

New at @science.org 🧪🏺

In mind-bending twist, ‘magic’ mushrooms evolved twice independently

Study identifies entirely new suite of enzymes that can make psilocybin

www.science.org

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👻Sewall Fright🎃 @stairwaytokevin.bsky.social · 11d

New — with @joannarifkin.bsky.social, @jotlovell.bsky.social, @spicybotrytis.bsky.social, and many more — we created seven new high-quality genomes and explored pangenomic variation in the emerging oilseed crop pennycress (Thlaspi arvense). 1/

Structure and sequence evolution in the pennycress (Thlaspi arvense) pangenome

Summary · Eukaryotic genomes harbor many forms of variation, including nucleotide diversity and structural polymorphisms, which experience natural selection and contribute to genome evolution and biod...

www.biorxiv.org

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Erica H Lawrence-Paul @ehlawrence-paul.bsky.social · 23d

Honored to have been selected for this award! 😊 Happy national postdoc appreciation week everyone!

Sunil Kenchanmane Raju @kenchanmane.bsky.social · 23d

Happy to announce @plantpostdocs.bsky.social
#Sahyadri #OutstandingPostdoc 2025 during
National Postdoc Appreciation Week #NPAW2025

🎉Congratulations!!
Erica Lawerence-Paul, PSU
Penelope Lindsay, OSU
Elena Perry, LBNL

@ehlawrence-paul.bsky.social @penlindsay.bsky.social

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Mark Ranger @markr4nger.bsky.social · Sep 3

‪This was a fun story to write.

Last year, environmental police in Brazil stumbled upon thousands of climbing bumblebee catfish. Scientists know almost nothing about this species, which only became known to science in 2017. 🧪🌿🌎

Science Magazine @science.org · Aug 22

Researchers have filmed thousands of climbing catfish scaling waterfalls, providing a rare insight into the daring migration of an enigmatic fish.

Learn more: https://scim.ag/4lDlFux

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Axel Visel @axelvisel.bsky.social · Aug 18

🌿Plant pangenomes🌿 have a LOT of genomic presence-absence-variation.

Or do they???

A new @jgi.doe.gov preprint by @tomasbruna.bsky.social @jotlovell.bsky.social @avril-m-harder.bsky.social Avinash Sreedasyam takes a closer look

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

A two-panel Scooby-Doo meme. In the top panel, Fred pulls the mask off a villain labeled “Presence-absence-variation in plant genomes.” In the bottom panel, the unmasked villain is revealed to be “Annotation artifacts.”

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Anna Bower @annabower.bsky.social · Aug 12

Weirdly this doesn't mention that the woman Trump put in charge of reviewing the Smithsonian is his Florida criminal defense attorney who didn't like some of the museum's exhibits when she visited after the inauguration so she convinced Trump to sign an executive order putting her in charge

The letter, dated Tuesday, Aug. 12, and viewed by The Wall Street Journal, was signed by White House senior associate Lindsey Halligan, the director of the domestic policy council, Vince Haley, and the director of the office of Management and Budget, Russ
Vought. "This is about preserving trust in one of our most cherished institutions," Halligan said in a statement. "The Smithsonian museums and exhibits should be accurate, patriotic, and enlightening- ensuring they remain places of learning, wonder, and
national pride for generations to come." The White House review of the Smithsonian's massive collection of art and historical artifacts comes as the president has sought to reform the country's cultural institutions, including top universities, and demonstrates Trump's efforts to recast
parts of American history in a more positive light.

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Chloee McLaughlin @chloeemc.bsky.social · Aug 11

Very happy to share our preprint on sorghum strigolactone diversity! 🌱

Sorghum naturally varies in strigolactones, plant hormones that can sometimes protect against the parasitic plant Striga.

We asked if this diversity could be connected to potential trade-offs in host resistance strategies.

bioRxivpreprint @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social · Aug 9

Strigolactone effects on Sorghum bicolor ecophysiology and symbioses https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.07.669140v1

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Joel Masanga @masangaj.bsky.social · Aug 8

Excited to see our pangenomic breeding network preprint out www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Delivering trait-enhanced varieties to African smallholders through a pangenomic breeding network

Pangenomics has been promoted to accelerate breeding of orphan crops, but smallholder farmers in developing nations have seen little benefit so far. To address this gap, we built a global pangenomic b...

www.biorxiv.org

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John Lovell @jotlovell.bsky.social · Aug 6

This began as a @jgi.doe.gov Community Science Program (CSP) project in 2017 with the goal of uniting the diverse sorghum breeding and mapping populations in the framework of a 'pangenome'.

Thanks to a huge efforts across many stakeholders, the article was preprinted today. A 🧵 w/ what we found:

bioRxiv Genomics @biorxiv-genomic.bsky.social · Aug 6

Developing future resilience from signatures of adaptation across the sorghum pangenome https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.01.667986v1

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Joseph Fasano @josephfasano.bsky.social · May 29

I'll never get over this poem a child wrote with one of my poetry prompts.

Mammoths and Ants

Look at the fragile mushrooms.
Look at the Black Widow.
Pause with me a moment,
and hear the cicadas humming.
Here is where I'm home,
among the Mammoth Redwoods.
When I was lost, the ants absorbed me,
calling me to the smallness of Earth.
There I heard the Song of Silence.
Come with me through the minuscule.
Listen. The Cicadas are humming.

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Plant & Cell Physiology @plantcellphysiol.bsky.social · May 28

Branching out...🎋🌼

Kuno et al. show that #Arabidopsis CYP722A1 synthesizes a noncanonical SL that specifically regulates floral transition, suggesting structural diversification of #strigolactones are required for specialized functions in #plantdevelopment
🆓🔗 doi.org/10.1093/pcp/...

#PlantScience

Schematic diagram showing strigolactone (SL) synthesis from carlactone precursor via distinct pathways to produce canonical or non-canonical SLs; with the latter product produced by CYP722A1, and required for flowering regulation. To the right is an image of the first author, Masaki Kuno.

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Kevin Folta @kevinfolta.bsky.social · May 21

Talking Biotech 459 - where did the key domestication mutations in corn come from? Were they present in resident gene pools waiting to be selected, or new mutations? I discuss with @jrossibarra and his student Regina Fairbanks.
@aspb @ASHS_Hort @UF_IFAS share.transistor.fm/s/bed2ffa6

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Chloee McLaughlin @chloeemc.bsky.social · May 23

We also showed that within-country genotype substitutions (swapping varieties) can improve climate matching to novel conditions. Countries with greater climatic diversity were more likely to have better substitutions - highlighting the value of current diversity for agricultural resilience. (🧵 2/2)

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Chloee McLaughlin @chloeemc.bsky.social · May 23

We combined crop models with genomic data to explore genotype-environment (GxE) associations in native varieties of cereal crops. Using our GxE associations, we predicted maladaptation following changes to climate and identified genotypes more suitable for novel climate conditions 🧬🌱 (🧵 1/2)

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Chloee McLaughlin @chloeemc.bsky.social · May 23

Very excited to see this PhD project get published in @natcomms.bsky.social!

Our paper on modeling maladaptation in cereal crops following a scenario of rapid climate change is out! 🌾

🧵👇

Jesse Lasky @laskyjr.bsky.social · May 9

new paper in @natcomms.nature.com by my former student @chloeemc.bsky.social on nuclear winter impacts on crops
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Maladaptation in cereal crop landraces following a soot-producing climate catastrophe - Nature Communications

Global catastrophes such as nuclear war can generate soot that reduces the amount of light reaching the earth’s surface. Here the authors model how this kind of catastrophe would impact common crop gr...

www.nature.com

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John Lovell @jotlovell.bsky.social · May 14

Wow, the cover looks great!
Nice work Patrice and @roederlab.bsky.social

The GENESPACE plot uses our new @jgi.doe.gov Pennycress and Brassica rapa genomes built in collaboration with @spicybotrytis.bsky.social & Katie Greenham, hosted on phytozome

Roeder Lab @roederlab.bsky.social · May 13

Check out the beautiful cover to our focus issue on Translational research from Arabidopsis to crop plants and beyond. More articles coming shortly. Congrats Patrice Salome and @jotlovell.bsky.social. @theplantcell.bsky.social academic.oup.com/plcell/issue...

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bioRxiv Plant Bio @biorxiv-plants.bsky.social · May 14

It's all in the timing: vegetative phase change alters selection under drought and contributes to local adaptation https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.05.13.653704v1

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bioRxivpreprint @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social · Apr 12

Ancient pangenomic origins of noncanonical NLR genes underlying the recent evolutionary rescue of a staple crop https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.11.648396v1

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · Feb 13

In 1825, a skilled Black artisan taught a young medical student, Charles Darwin, how to preserve animal specimens via taxidermy, a skill he used in his exploration of the Galapagos.

John Edmonstone was born a slave in Guyana, but freed when the family who owned him moved back to Scotland.

"Artist’s impression of John Edmonstone teaching Darwin to preserve birds." A Black man appears to work on a piece of cardboard that will become a preserved bird's wing. He wears a workman's apron, and Darwin, young and also wearing an apron, stands nearby with a tool in one hand a dead bird in the other.
CREDIT: State Darwin Museum

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Jaclyn A. Siegel, PhD @jacasiegel.bsky.social · Feb 11

Happy International Day of Women in Science. The National Science Foundation’s list of flagged words includes both “Women” and “Female.”

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Bruno J. Navarro @brunojnavarro.bsky.social · Dec 18

“Once you decide that a single vulnerable minority can be sacrificed, you’re operating within a fascist logic,” they said. “That means there might be a second one you’re willing to sacrifice and a third, a fourth. Then what happens?”

Abandoning trans people is 'fascist logic', says leading feminist philosopher

Leading feminist philosopher Judith Butler has declared that abandoning trans people or any minority is operating within 'fascist logic'.

www.thepinknews.com

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Michelle Stitzer @mcstitzer.bsky.social · Jan 27

New preprint featuring my favorite maize-relatives, the Andropogoneae! We sequenced the genomes of 27 species, including lemongrass, kangaroo grass, little and big bluestem, and more -- key species that shape grasslands and prairies worldwide. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

On top, five Andropogoneae grass species, from left to right Zea mays subsp. mays, Hemarthria uncinata, Miscanthus sinensis, Sorghum bicolor, Andropogon gerardi. On bottom, a map of the world, with collection sites of Andropogoneae grasses in points. A green background shows the distribution of Andropogoneae grasses throughout tropical and temperate latitudes

On left, a phylogeny of Andropogoneae species, with 14 independent polyploidy origins noted. On right, genome size and repeat content of each assembly. Across all assemblies, average assembly size is 1.9 Gb, and average repeat size is 1.5 Gb.

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bioRxiv Evolutionary Biology @biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social · Jan 21

Evolution of species' range and niche in changing environments https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.01.16.633367v1

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Anna Brüniche-Olsen @annabruniche.bsky.social · Jan 10

Redlisting genetics: towards inclusion of genetic data in IUCN Red List assessments link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Redlisting genetics: towards inclusion of genetic data in IUCN Red List assessments - Conservation Genetics

Genetic diversity is critical for adaptation in response to changing environments and provides a valuable metric for predicting species’ extinction risk. The International Union for Conservation of Na...

link.springer.com

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Chloee McLaughlin @chloeemc.bsky.social · Jan 16

Super happy to share that our perspective piece on why and how genetic data should be incorporated into IUCN Red List assessments is published! This was a passion project that came out of a grad-level class taught by @jillahamilton.bsky.social 🌿🦇🐞🪼🦧🌳🧬

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Redlisting genetics: towards inclusion of genetic data in IUCN Red List assessments - Conservation Genetics

Genetic diversity is critical for adaptation in response to changing environments and provides a valuable metric for predicting species’ extinction risk. The International Union for Conservation of Na...

link.springer.com

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