Karl Schmid

The ERC Starting Grant numbers are out. With a staggering 60% increase in applications and a 15% reduction in funding volume, the success rate drops to an all time low of 5%. That number should be a warning to both future applicants and the @erc.europa.eu. 1/9 erc.europa.eu/news-events/...

"AI Reviews Might Beat Human Peer Reviews" by @stephenturner.us Well worth a read, including the references. blog.stephenturner.us/p/ai-peer-re...

Bravo @erc.europa.eu 🙄

Professorship (W2) of Computational Plant Systematics (6 years/tenure track). New job offer in our biology department @lmu.de 👇. Please apply and help to spread the word. www.nature.com/naturecareer... #PlantSciJob #PlantScience

Künstliche Intelligenz: 3,8 Millionen Anweisungen (Skills) für KI-Agenten erstmals systematisch erforschbar. #UniHohenheim schafft Grundlage, um Verbreitung, Veränderungen & Qualität zu untersuchen – und Prüfverfahren zu entwickeln. #KI #KünstlicheIntelligenz #KIAgent Pressemitteilung t1p.de/83q29

Die Sendung zum Nachhören gibt es hier: www.deutschlandfunk.de/gruene-gente... #Gentechnik #Wisskomm

Pro-Tip: Don't upload your unfinished or unpublished papers to OpenAI etc.

Very sad to hear that Margaret Hamilton has passed away. Here's a short thread about her role in the Apollo mission, and her lesser-known work on the simulations that led to the discovery of Chaos Theory. 🧪 👩‍🔬 ⚛️

Ohne Bestäuber keine nächste Aussaat! Studie der #UniHohenheim zeigt: Berücksichtigt man die Saatgutproduktion ist in Deutschland der Wert der Bestäubungsleistung rund 33 % höher als bislang berechnet. #Bestäuber #Insekten #Landwirtschaft #Saatgut Pressemitteilung: t1p.de/tkzcr

My inbox is being flooded with fully AI-generated emails from prospective students. I tried to work out why I can't bring myself to read them, and ended up with some thoughts and advice for writing cold emails in the age of AI. My new post: blekhman.substack.com/p/why-i-am-n...

Job alert! We are looking for a Head of Applied Genomics in our Vegetable Division @kwsgroup.bsky.social. This is a leadership position (full-time, permanent) based in the Netherlands. A strong background in #CropGenetics and leadership experience are necessary. #PlantScienceJobs #PlantSciJobs

We are basically like this in research already. Postdocs and PhD students growing plants, doing tissue culture, and pipetting, while AI chat bots doing the analyses, writing proposals and papers. Humans having to do the menial tasks, while AI chat bots took over the creative work.

Would be interesting to know how much stress is reduced by reflecting and writing a daily journal compared to "just" reading.

I am happy to present our work @liverworks.bsky.social @robinburns.bsky.social @alisondawnscott.bsky.social on centromeric repeat turnovers, of which we counted three in the Arabidopsis genus:

Looking forward to find out whether reading the book by @matthewcobb.bsky.social about a researcher from the University of Cambridge is good for my health. This one below 👇 arrived today, right on time

This is what high throughput disease phenotyping looks like... 😍

The first preprint of my lab has just come out doi.org/10.64898/202... This paper came out at the same day on the sudden passing of Prof. Meng Chen. Without his work, this paper would not have existed. He was an extremely supportive member of the plant photobiology community..

New preprint! There have been quite a few papers about RLP and RLK receptors, but none of them have a truly reproducible annotation pipeline (including my own...)... We finally made such a pipeline and look more systematically at RLPs within tomato. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

I'm looking to hire a postdoc to work on the RepAdapt + MacroMar projects, analysing genomic data from >130 species of plants, animals, and fungi (VCFs are processed, ready to go). Lots of potential for creativity and collaboration! yeamanlab.weebly.com/uploads/5/7/...

A groundbreaking model reveals that while AI boosts productivity, its educational use risks diminishing skill development by tempting students to delegate tasks. Redesigning courses to balance effort with AI tool usage is vital for fostering genuine learning. https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.18735

"AfD Wähler*innen, die versuchen, Honig aus den falschen Versprechungen des Rechtsextremismus zu saugen" #NoAfD Gruss aus den Bergen des Piemont

Very cool project. Congratulations, Germain!

Das Ergebnis der gestrigen Landtagswahl in Sachsen-Anhalt kommentieren die Präsidenten der Hochschulrektorenkonferenz (HRK) und der Landesrektorenkonferenz (LRK) Sachsen-Anhalt, Prof. Dr. Walter Rosenthal und Prof. Dr. Folker Roland, in einem gemeinsamen Statement. ➡️ www.hrk.de/presse/press...

Out of Office, Summer 2026 Edition. (Monviso, Piedmont 🇮🇹)

Hören wir die, die das Final- und Vollbild des Rechtsextremismus erlebt haben.

Please submit comments to the EU Commission’s Call for Evidence on how to implement the new rules for "Plants obtained by new genomic techniques (#NGT)". Submission deadline 28 Sept. Below what I submitted. #plantscience ec.europa.eu/info/law/bet... ec.europa.eu/info/law/bet...

Der Umgang mit Rechtsextremismus in der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik war immer problematisch. Immer beschwichtigend, immer verharmlosend. Selten die reale Gefahr im Blick, selten im Sinne der (potentiellen) Opfer. Es handelt sich um den politischen Extremismus, der in der Geschichte der… 1/29

Nie war es so wichtig wie jetzt ein Zeichen zu setzen, seine Stimme zu erheben und für ein demokratisches Sachsen-Anhalt zu kämpfen! Am 6. September sind Landtagswahlen und es geht darum, das dieses Bundesland zeigt, dass die Mehrheit der Menschen nicht von Nazis regiert werden will! ❤️🧡💛💚💜🤍

The blog post is worth a read, the 258 papers probably not.

A glacier collapse is most likely cause of the Nepal disaster www.newscientist.com/article/2586...

📣we're hiring a PhD researcher to test whether rhizosphere microbiomes keep flowers attractive under drought 🌸 joint supervision with soil ecologist @tcamenzind.bsky.social for the ROOT2BLOOM project in @greenrobust.de apply by 30/09 tinyurl.com/root2bloom questions welcome, thanks for sharing!

An opportunity to work with me 👇

📣 Job alert! 2 Positions starting 2027. PhD position with me and @bayerlab.bsky.social on Robustness of embryonic and stomatal development, part of @greenrobust.de Postdoc position on the regulation of cell state, following up on some exciting snRNAseq dat! Apply now or share! #PlantSciJob

„Die Welt um uns verdorrt, stirbt, vergeht in Asche, und wir machen einfach so weiter. Als seien wir kein Teil davon“ www.zeit.de/feuilleton/2...

New PhD opportunity with Bernd Berauer and myself within the @greenrobust.de cluster @unihohenheim.bsky.social ! 3-yr funded position to measure and model gas exchange at leaf, plant, and canopy scale. Applications can be submitted until *September 15*, at: jobs.uni-hohenheim.de/jobposting/2...

A good way to end the week: some rain and a new preprint! 🌧️🧬 Big 👏 to @lpiat.bsky.social for tackling a tricky genome assembly problem! We assembled the genome of a Swiss Lolium multiflorum ecotype, a forage grass with a large (~2.2 Gb), highly heterozygous genome. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Der DLF plant zum Jahresende eine Programmreform, u.A. sind „Forschung aktuell“ und „Umwelt und Verbaucher“ betroffen. Themen sollen dann im Gespräch erörtert werden. Es würden gut recherchierte, akkurate und verständlich aufbereitete Hintergrundinfos wegfallen www.openpetition.de/petition/onl...

#PlantSciJobs #PlantSciJob W3-Professorship in Plant Breeding @unihalle.bsky.social wcms.itz.uni-halle.de/download.php...

My latest attempt at an AI/LLM policy in my intro to social science stats class. Basically two rules: 1. Everything human-facing must be human-generated 2. You are responsible for understanding, verifying, and citing everything an LLM generates quantf26.classes.andrewheiss.com/syllabus.htm...

Thrilling to see that our founding GreenRobust spokesperson Rosa Lozano-Durán (@geminiteamlab.bsky.social) has been appointed as new director @mpipz.bsky.social in Cologne. Congratulations! We wish you all the best for your future endeavors in a new environment, Rosa!

🔬Big news🥳 We’re excited to welcome Prof. Dr. Rosa Lozano-Durán as new Director and head of the Department of Plant Virology @mpipz.bsky.social Her research focuses on how plant viruses interact with their hosts. 🎉Welcome to MPIPZ, Rosa 🌿🌱 www.mpipz.mpg.de/5842514/loza...

Wie können alte Sorten unsere Ernährung sichern? Und warum kann die Genbank des @leibnizipk.bsky.social Lösungen für Herausforderungen wie Hitze und Trockenheit anbieten? All das erklärt Anna Backhaus in der Wissenschaftssendung "Quarks" des WDR. Reinhören lohnt! www.ardsounds.de/episode/urn:...

Professorship in plant breeding in Halle/Germany. Doownload: wcms.itz.uni-halle.de/download.php...

Symbolbild für den Sommer 2026: Ein weniger als halbvoller "Speicherteich" als Teil einer 50 Mio € teuren Anlage (inkl. Zerstörung eines Hochmoors) zur Produktion von Kunstschnee für die Skipisten nebenan. Ob es noch genug regnet bis zum Winter? Ort: Schwarzwasserbach im Kleinwalsertal

We are looking for a Scientist in #PlantCellBiology here at @kwsgroup.bsky.social in Einbeck. The position is in our Doubled Haploid Research Unit, and the work can be done onsite or remote! This is a two-year contract. jobs.kws.com/job/Einbeck-... #PlantSciJobs #PlantSciJob #PlantScience

❗ French agriculture is experiencing one of the worst nationwide agricultural disasters since 1945 due to drought. 🔻 corn -41% 🔻 sorghum - 61% (promoted as drought tolerant! 🤔 ) 🔻 wheat -31% 🔻 potato -42% 🔻 legumes -30 to -70% A huge challenge for all. www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

Lest das! www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft...

FUNDING. We secured our first collaborative grant with @mpcontreras.bsky.social through the @greenrobust.de excellence cluster. Our project IDentity will investigate the mechanistic consequences of domain integration, a major event that reshapes function and evolution of #NLR immune receptors 🌱❄️🔬

Das @leibnizipk.bsky.social betreibt eine der größten Genbanken weltweit. Für unsere Gruppe "Genbankdokumentation" suchen wir einen erfahrenen Wissenschaftler (m/w/d), der uns bei der Erschließung, Aufbereitung und Auswertung von Daten unterstützt. Neugierig? ➡️Alle Infos: tinyurl.com/8ysku9k7