Max Stassen
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maxstassen.bsky.social
Max Stassen
@maxstassen.bsky.social
1.3K followers 850 following 5 posts
PhD candidate Plant Microbe Interactions at Utrecht University | Exploring the role of coumarins in the plant's microbiome-root-shoot communication | He/him
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Reposted by Max Stassen
eliothiggins.bsky.social
We’re watching a shift where AI simulates the cohesion and reinforcement that used to require an entire online community. A single person can now build a complete parallel reality with nothing more than a prompt window. Which seems bad.
November 19, 2025 at 2:25 PM
Reposted by Max Stassen
momedinamunoz.bsky.social
Very proud to be Colombian right now! 🇨🇴 I hope all neighboring countries follow suit soon! news.mongabay.com/short-articl...
Colombia bans all new oil and mining projects in its Amazon
Colombia will no longer approve new oil or large-scale mining projects in its Amazon biome, which covers 42% of the nation’s territory, according to a Nov. 13 statement by its environment ministry. Ac...
news.mongabay.com
November 30, 2025 at 3:21 AM
Reposted by Max Stassen
evolvedbiofilm.bsky.social
Enrichment of root-associated Streptomyces strains in response to drought is driven by diverse functional traits and does not predict beneficial effects on plant growth

-in @plosbiology.org from Devin Coleman-Derr

journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
Enrichment of root-associated Streptomyces strains in response to drought is driven by diverse functional traits and does not predict beneficial effects on plant growth
Understanding how root microbes respond to drought is crucial for improving crop resilience. This study finds that Streptomyces responses are strain-specific and functionally diverse, with traits and ...
journals.plos.org
November 30, 2025 at 4:34 PM
Reposted by Max Stassen
astrokatie.com
I don’t know if anyone else notices or cares, but when I see a presentation in which the speaker uses obviously generated-AI images to illustrate their slides, it makes me immediately less confident in whatever other content they’re presenting.
November 28, 2025 at 3:07 PM
Reposted by Max Stassen
evolvedbiofilm.bsky.social
Induced endosymbiosis between a fungus and bacterium reveals a shift from antagonism to commensalism

@natcomms.nature.com by Thomas Gassler et al from Julia Vorholt

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Ralstonia pickettii in the fungus Rhizopus microsporus

#Endofungal
Induced endosymbiosis between a fungus and bacterium reveals a shift from antagonism to commensalism - Nature Communications
Gassler et al. implant a free-living bacterium into fungal cells to study early steps in the establishment of an endosymbiosis. They observe vertical transmission of the bacteria despite initial host ...
www.nature.com
November 28, 2025 at 5:33 PM
Reposted by Max Stassen
evolvedbiofilm.bsky.social
Girbe Buist opens the yearly Host-Microbe Genetics meeting #HMG2025 hosted this year in Groningen
November 28, 2025 at 9:36 AM
Reposted by Max Stassen
rutgerbregman.com
I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture.

They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1
November 25, 2025 at 9:26 AM
Reposted by Max Stassen
nytimes.com
Prosecutors in California used A.I. to argue that a 57-year-old man should be held without bail, his lawyers say, filing a brief that included wholesale misinterpretations of the law, as well as quotations that do not actually appear in the cited texts. nyti.ms/3M1bVye
Prosecutor Used Flawed A.I. to Keep a Man in Jail, His Lawyers Say
The case is among the first in which a prosecutor is accused of filing court papers marred by A.I.-generated mistakes.
nyti.ms
November 25, 2025 at 3:45 PM
Reposted by Max Stassen
gstringlis.bsky.social
@vcarryon.bsky.social @finkel-lab.bsky.social @vivianecordovez.bsky.social @ainhoamartinez.bsky.social @adamoss.bsky.social #eleonora Rolli #jose gutierrez barranquero
gstringlis.bsky.social Giannis Stringlis @gstringlis.bsky.social · 12d
Together with a team of great colleagues, we edit a collection titled "Harnessing plant microbiomes to improve performance and mechanistic understanding" nature.com/collections/cg… in the journals @natureportfolio.nature.com @microbiomej.bsky.social . It's open for submission till June 2026.
https://nature.com/collections/cg…
November 19, 2025 at 2:36 PM
Reposted by Max Stassen
uuplants.bsky.social
We are beyond excited to reveal the full line-up for our Environmental Signaling in Plants summer school 2026!

Registration is now open here eps.sites.uu.nl - we look forward to seeing you in Utrecht on 24th-26th August!
13th Utrecht PhD Summer School​ Environmental Signaling in Plants Aug 24-26 2026 Speakers: Laura Ragni, Roeland Berendsen, Mariana Silva Artur, Matthew Paul, Ari Sadanandom, Beatrice Giuntoli, Bruno Guillotin, Priya Ramakrishna, Caroline Gutjahr, Niko Geldner, Laura Bacete and Marcel Beukeboom.
November 11, 2025 at 3:59 PM
Reposted by Max Stassen
evolvedbiofilm.bsky.social
Plant miRNAs influence soil bacterial growth and amino acid uptake, restructuring community composition

-in #ISMEComms

academic.oup.com/ismecommun/a...
Plant miRNAs influence soil bacterial growth and amino acid uptake, restructuring community composition
Abstract. Plants and microbes use many strategies to acquire soil amino acids. Recent findings suggest that genes related to amino acid metabolism and tran
academic.oup.com
November 9, 2025 at 11:33 AM
Reposted by Max Stassen
hadley.nz
Do you teach #rstats? Do your students complain about how lame and old-fashioned dplyr is? Don't worry: I have the solution for you: github.com/hadley/genzp....

genzplyr is dplyr, but bussin fr fr no cap.
GitHub - hadley/genzplyr: dplyr but make it bussin fr fr no cap
dplyr but make it bussin fr fr no cap. Contribute to hadley/genzplyr development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
November 6, 2025 at 11:25 PM
Reposted by Max Stassen
evolvedbiofilm.bsky.social
Ioannis Stringlis (Agricultural University of Athens) on Root Defense Barriers Modulate Beneficial Microbe Interactions and Microbiome Assembly in Arabidopsis
#PMS2025
November 4, 2025 at 10:26 AM
Reposted by Max Stassen
microsos.bsky.social
#PMS2025 is a great occasion for many members of the MicroSOS consortium to meet and discuss about the project’s current and future activities!
November 5, 2025 at 4:35 PM
Reposted by Max Stassen
courtneyherms.bsky.social
We are back at #PMS2025 with Giannis Stringlis who continues the earlier theme on how root biology interacts with the microbiome
November 4, 2025 at 10:29 AM
Reposted by Max Stassen
courtneyherms.bsky.social
Getting a bit technical with some bioinformatics to discover the undiscovered in microbiomes by @jhcepas.bsky.social #PMS2025
November 6, 2025 at 3:02 PM
Reposted by Max Stassen
courtneyherms.bsky.social
Probably my favorite publication ever: @hueihsuantsai.bsky.social of @nikogeldner.bsky.social lab explains microbial hotspots along the root via Casparian strip integrity #PMS2025
November 4, 2025 at 9:23 AM
Reposted by Max Stassen
evolvedbiofilm.bsky.social
The first talk of #PMS2025 by Julia Vorholt concentrates on SynCom for plant microbiomes research, a phyllosphere perspective 🌱
November 3, 2025 at 5:25 PM
Reposted by Max Stassen
evolvedbiofilm.bsky.social
@cornepieterse.bsky.social Plant Microbiome: The Extended Host Immune System

#PMS2025
November 7, 2025 at 9:48 AM
Reposted by Max Stassen
watershedlab.bsky.social
Who did this?!
A joke scientific paper with the title "Over 90% of children diagnosed with autism consumed breast milk and/or formula mileL a comprehensive cross-sectional analysis of the obvious"
November 1, 2025 at 8:38 PM
Reposted by Max Stassen
luzia-stalder.bsky.social
Still using 16S/ITS profiling? You might want to reconsider👀

Our new paper presents pangenome-informed amplicons that provide up to 10× higher phylogenetic resolution than full-length ribosomal markers- while remaining cost effective and scalable!
microbiomejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....
High-resolution profiling of bacterial and fungal communities using pangenome-informed taxon-specific long-read amplicons - Microbiome
Background High-throughput sequencing technologies have greatly advanced our understanding of microbiomes, but resolving microbial communities at species and strain levels remains challenging. Results...
microbiomejournal.biomedcentral.com
October 30, 2025 at 1:32 PM
Reposted by Max Stassen
joshscherr.bsky.social
Print edition @theonion.com ads don’t miss
A newspaper full page ad with a brightly colored burst of exploding powder, Adobe logo in the corner, copy reading “experience the magic of buying new software every month forever”
October 30, 2025 at 7:19 PM
Reposted by Max Stassen
chefstentor.bsky.social
Don't make me tap the sign.
A computer can never be held accountable, therefore a computer must never make a management decision
October 29, 2025 at 4:07 PM
Reposted by Max Stassen
drjoehanson.bsky.social
When people learn with ChatGPT instead of following their own searches, they end up knowing less, caring less, and producing worse advice, even when the facts are the same.

Friction is an essential ingredient for learning! Convenience makes us shallow.

academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...
Experimental evidence of the effects of large language models versus web search on depth of learning
Abstract. The effects of using large language models (LLMs) versus traditional web search on depth of learning are explored. A theory is proposed that when
academic.oup.com
October 28, 2025 at 3:14 PM
Reposted by Max Stassen
leahshaffer.bsky.social
You don't have to move here but I would not recommend staying there.

#ScienceSky journals, seriously, get rid of the "X" button, that place isn't safe to direct ANYONE. #MedSky journals and #AcademiaSky do the same.

Ain't worth keeping a toe in poison waters. 🧪🩺
downwithdan.bsky.social Dan of the Year @downwithdan.bsky.social · Oct 26
Brace for another wave of x refuges
& What's happening: Elon Musk confirmed that X will delete all heuristics from its recommendation system within six weeks. In other words, the familiar logic of likes, replies, and reposts that shaped Twitter for years is about to disappear. In its place, Grok, the platform's in-house Al model, will read and watch more than one hundred million posts and videos every day to decide what users see. At the same time, X is testing a new interface that keeps users inside the app even when they open external links. How this hits reality: This marks the first time a major social platform has handed full control of content discovery to an Al model. Engagement farms, trend-hacking accounts, and traditional growth tactics may soon lose their edge. The new winners will be those who write in ways that Grok interprets as engaging, turning social media optimization into a new form of prompt engineering. This shift could reshape influencer strategies, ad targeting, and even political communication in a matter of weeks. • Key takeaway: X did not just change its algorithm; it replaced it with an Al reader. Your reach will soon depend on how fluently you can speak Grok.
October 26, 2025 at 4:18 PM