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Sam Mugford

@samtmugford.bsky.social

920 followers 1.9K following 190 posts

Science worrier, decoding bugs https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8537-5578

orcid.org

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Sam Mugford @samtmugford.bsky.social · Nov 18

We’re delighted to share our latest preprint from the Hogenhout lab (@saskiahogenhout.bsky.social) on the molecular mechanisms on plant-aphid interactions. Here we show how the aphid Mp10 effector protein acts as a local anaesthetic to suppress the plant perception of aphid attack

bioRxiv Plant Bio @biorxiv-plants.bsky.social · Nov 17

The conserved aphid saliva chemosensory protein effector Mp10 targets plant AMSH deubiquitinases at cellular membranes to suppress pattern-triggered immunity https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.11.15.622802v1

Chemosensory proteins (CSPs) are a conserved family present in insects and other arthropods, recogni

www.biorxiv.org

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Sam Mugford @samtmugford.bsky.social · 11h

I think I saw Black Nectar and Iron Gall Ink playing at Download Festival last year
nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Post‐secretory synthesis of a natural analog of iron‐gall ink in the black nectar of Melianthus spp.

nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Sam Mugford @samtmugford.bsky.social · 1d

You were the best, we were honoured to host you, thank you so much for coming

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Mary Williams @PlantTeaching @plantteaching.bsky.social · 1d

I had so much fun sharing my love and awe of plant with the students and teachers and staff at the Norwich Biosciences Institutes Accessible Science Talks event. I hope I inspired a few students to apply their talents to plant science!

Ben Dewhurst @dewhurst-ben.bsky.social · 1d

A treat to hear from (and briefly chat with) @plantteaching.bsky.social today at the #NBIAST2025 event today

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Mary Williams @PlantTeaching @plantteaching.bsky.social · 1d

#NBIAST2025
Designer flowers for art and education
@nickdesnoyer.bsky.social
Combining art, design, and science.

Nick Desnoyer presenting his talk on art and flowers

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John Innes Centre @johninnescentre.bsky.social · 1d

Today is the day! 🌟🥼🧪

We’re thrilled to be kicking off the NBI Accessible Science Talks, in collaboration with @earlhaminst.bsky.social , @quadraminstitute.bsky.social and @thesainsburylab.bsky.social

Thank you in advance to everyone for joining us - whether in-person or online!

#NBIAST2025

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Nick Desnoyer @nickdesnoyer.bsky.social · 2d

Fantastical flowers, synthetic biology, and storytelling.

Giving an accessible science talk tomorrow at 10:40 UK time... come join!

Register here for the link 👉 jic.link/NBIAST2025

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Sam Mugford @samtmugford.bsky.social · 2d

"What is the biological relevance?"

CNBC @cnbc.com · 3d

To shut down rude behavior instantly, try a simple yet powerful five-word response.

Use this 5-word phrase when someone is rude to you—it's like 'holding up a mirror,' says public speaking expert

When we encounter a rude person, our first instinct might be to fire back with a snarky comment. But that's not the right move, says public speaking expert John Bowe. Here's the perfect response to instantly shut down rude behavior.

cnb.cx

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John Innes Centre @johninnescentre.bsky.social · 5d

VACANCY - Independent research fellowships leading to tenured positions

We’re inviting applications from outstanding researchers who either hold, or wish to apply for, Independent Research Fellowships.

APPLICATION DEADLINE: 10 November 2025

Click here to apply: jic.link/Fellows

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Dr Delyth Badder @folklorewales.com · 3d

Six weeks ago, I picked up a year-old tawny owl with a broken leg off the main road near our home and dropped him off at our nearest vet.

After a few days, I received one of the most bizarre phone calls I’ve ever had, asking “So when are you coming to pick up your owl?” 🧵

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Ash Higgins @ashhiggins.bsky.social · 4d

This. Is. Why. I. Paint.

"They're trying to convince people they can't do the things they've been doing easily for years - to write emails, to write a presentation. Your daughter wants you to make up a bedtime story about puppies - to write that for you." We will get to the point, she says with a grim laugh, "that you will essentially become just a skin bag of organs and bones, nothing else. You won't know anything and you will be told repeatedly that you can't do it, which is the opposite of what life has to offer. Capitulating all kinds of decisions like where to go on vacation, what to wear today, who to date, what to eat.
People are already doing this. You won't have to process grief, because you'll have uploaded photos and voice messages from your mother who just died, and then she can talk to you via Al video call every day. One of the ways it's going to destroy humans, long before there's a nuclear disaster, is going to be the emotional hollowing-out of people."

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Philippa Borrill @philippaborrill.bsky.social · 5d

We are looking for a postdoctoral researcher to join our team! They will work on homeolog-informed approaches to tackle cold tolerance in wheat @johninnescentre.bsky.social

Please find out more and apply here: jobs.jic.ac.uk/Details.asp?...

#plantsciences #plantscijobs

John Innes Centre

jobs.jic.ac.uk

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Sam Mugford @samtmugford.bsky.social · 5d

We're preparing the name badges for the 10th Norwich Biosciences Institutes #accessiblescience event on Tuesday, expecting 250 people in the @johninnescentre.bsky.social conference centre including students from local schools (and their teachers including @dewhurst-ben.bsky.social )

A name badge with three interesting facts reading "Ben Dewhurst, I have brewed zombie beer, I accidently invented prunes, I know what koala poo smells like."

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franz @franzanth.bsky.social · Aug 12

just make it exist first
you can make it crab later

a comic in two parts.
part one. text says, just make it exist first. image is a drawing of a circle.
part two. text says, you can make it crab later, but the word crab is scribbled as if it replaced something. image is a drawing of a crab.

footer says: by joabaldwin, based on the comic by growthbyvisuals, then carcinized by franzanth.

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Mike Galsworthy @mikegalsworthy.bsky.social · 8d

😮 “There are dozens, possibly hundreds, of different sorts of galls on oak trees. In Britain alone, more than 70 species of gall wasps are responsible, and each one creates a distinct structure.”

The secret lives of oak gall wasps

Oak trees and gall wasps have a marvellous secret symbiotic relationship

sussexbylines.co.uk

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holden m. accountable @noahs.bsky.social · 9d

THE MEME IS REAL

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Maureen Barr @barrlab.bsky.social · 19d

This preprint title for the win! "The First of Us: Ophiocordyceps use a novel scramblase-binding peptide to manipulate zombie ants" doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Science is cool too! Authors use #celegans to identify the targets... #cilia and scramblases

a painting of a girl with her eyes closed and the watermark tlouhq

ALT: a painting of a girl with her eyes closed and the watermark tlouhq

media.tenor.com

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Sam Mugford @samtmugford.bsky.social · 11d

I'm sad that there are no absolutely enormous megalithic dynamic sculptures in the mix

Reposted by Sam Mugford

Rebecca R Helm @rebeccarhelm.bsky.social · 14d

I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA

10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)

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Moths in a human suit (they/them) @lycomorpha.bsky.social · 14d

For the actual, whole, and entire sake of fuck.

Running Dog @runningdog.bsky.social · 14d

The fox needs access to the hen coop ASAP, to prevent disaster

At the conference in Dubai, Ellison began with a joke about Musk before warning the audience that artificial super-intelligence was coming sooner than expected.
What, Blair asked him, should governments be doing about it? "The first thing a country needs to do is unify all of their data so that it can be consumed and used by the Al model, Ellison responded.
Ellison was also specific about which data needed unifying - and he had an example in mind: "The NHS in the UK has an incredible amount of population data," he
declared, but it was too "fragmented" at present. Below him, the former prime minister nodded, clutching his Tony Blair Institute (TBI) notebook.

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Nick Desnoyer @nickdesnoyer.bsky.social · 15d

Meet "Little Flower".

A genetically engineered flower, frozen in time and blown up over 150X. Here's the story (1/6 🧵)

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Prof Mike Yearworth @mikeyearworth.bsky.social · 17d

"In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limits."

www.computerworld.com/article/4059...