闵娅(Min Ya; Minya) PhD

Heya I put together a bunch of things that i have been thinking about over the past a few years into this insight piece and look forward to any discussion this may lead to 🌸💚

Congratulations to @sannie-zishanfu.bsky.social for publishing the major paper from her PhD in Nature Plants. 👇🎉🌿 www.nature.com/articles/s41... Wonderful collaboration with @rafadscruz.bsky.social and @jensen-research.bsky.social @ukri.org #UKRIFLF @instmolplantsci.bsky.social

Our latest featured image shows a duckweed colony with regions with actively dividing cell labelled in green. You can discover more about the image and Emily Chan’s research in our post: focalplane.biologists.com/2026/10/23/f... #plantbiology #duckweed #microscopy #confocal

This Monday: Fellowship Writing for Beginners. Panelists who’ve won NSF-GRFP, USDA-NIFA & FFAR on how they found the right fellowships and what made their applications stand out. Free, on Zoom. Mon Oct 26, 3 PM ET / 12 PM PT Register: udel.zoom.us/meeting/regi... #PlantScience #GradSchool

And now the second preprint of the lab! doi.org/10.64898/202... HY5 shoot-root movement is real and it is necessary and sufficient for the root developmental response to neighbour shading. This is a story in collaboration with the lab of @ronaldpierik.bsky.social + @kyravandervelde.bsky.social

#Pokemon #Pokemonart #pokemonfanart #corsola #galariancorsola #Cursola

Super interesting paper exploring the molecular basis of left-right asymmetry in of enantiostyly in butterfly lilies! The style bend and rotate before flowering to avoid the anther (and prevent self-pollination). Controlled by a hemizygous locus supergene! 🤩 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🌱 How do plants read chitin length? The receptor CHIP13 works like a molecular measuring tape. What began 13 years ago with a recalcitrant protein is now in @science.org. Thanks to all my co-authors and colleagues! doi.org/10.1126/scie...

Gave a lecture on flowers this morning at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute to a big group of (mostly) retirees, and dare I say, it was one of the best groups of students I've ever had! They were so curious and engaging, ask a ton of great questions, and I had an amazing time because of that!

Congrats @jillmlove.bsky.social and damn look at that amazing cover! ❤️🌸🐵 #mimuluspropaganda

Are you looking for a PhD in the area of plant evolution? If so do apply to join the lab for this competitively funded @gpsep.bsky.social PhD project to study the evolution of branching architecture by combing data from fossils, ferns and genes. www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

We're delighted to share our latest paper published today in @currentbiology.bsky.social . www.cell.com/current-biol... We use comparative transcriptomics and microscopy to show that this tiny structure contains a fusion of a compressed stem and a leaf.

#auxin2026 D2 progressing nicely. Great talk from @minyaaa.bsky.social about floral and leave development in Monkey-flower….

Petal to the metal: The slow road to automating large-scale #phenology labeling for #herbarium specimens New in #AppsPlantSci by @er1ngrady.bsky.social, @djli.bsky.social, @rdinnager.bsky.social, Rob Guralnick, et al. doi.org/10.1002/aps3... @floridamuseum.bsky.social @usa-npn.bsky.social #botany

New preprint out from my time as a postdoc in @jenncoughlan.bsky.social lab! In a range-wide survey of M. guttatus, we found a lack of stomatal regulation in response to drought, which led to our inability to draw predictions from other known trait-associations www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

🧬🔬 Why are enhancers transcribed and how does that impact gene regulation? I’m really excited to share our new paper in @science.org showing that noncoding RNAs control the timing of gene activation in embryos. With Mike Levine #ScienceResearch @columbiamed.bsky.social A few highlights below... 🧵👇

2/ To see this with our own eyes, we turned to live imaging – and to the HOX genes. We visualized, in real time, the transcription of an endogenous eRNA (magenta spots) produced by a distal enhancer of the HOX gene Scr (green, in trans) in individual nuclei (grey) of live fly embryos:

Feeling proud of where SpliceCraft is at right now. Still got more details to add and UI jank to solve, but powerful af and open source. Made, with love, for this community. Enjoy. SpliceCraft.bio

Excited to share our new paper is out in TPJ! 🌱 "Out of the blue: family-wide loss of anthocyanin biosynthesis in Cucurbitaceae" We explore the anthocyanin biosynthesis gene loss through comparative genomics: doi.org/10.1111/tpj.... @nancy-choudhary.bsky.social @puckerlab.bsky.social #Evolution

We have written a review on MADS-box genes expression in developing floral organs, which has been under-explored as compared to their early role to specify floral organ identity. Congrats to Emma Désert for her first review article as a PhD student! #proudPI @rdplab.bsky.social

"embrace AI to reveal the hidden beauty in your data." or embrace AI to hallucinate data

www.nikonsmallworld.com/galleries/20... Am I the only one who thinks this is AI?

🌿 Congratulations to our 2026 Katherine Esau Award recipients, Angelique Acevedo (Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) and Andrea Appleton (Harvard University), for their outstanding presentations in developmental & structural botany at Botany 2026! #BSA2026AwardsBlitz #IamaBotanist #PlantPeopleFTW

Nausicaä and @science-irl.bsky.social both LOVE PLANTS. We look at this 1984 Hayao Miyazaki classic and chat about when PLANTS FIGHT BACK and more on See Jurassic Right. It’s Summer Flicks With Scientists. youtu.be/nQC3O5wx8ps

Activation of anthocyanin biosynthesis in Utricularia gibba depends on nitrogen starvation and light exposure #FlavonoidFriday doi.org/10.64898/202... & shorturl.at/Be9T2

'Our findings show how a single flower can integrate two contrasting pollination strategies—deception and mutualism—to exploit two very different pollinators,' said author Aroonrat Kidyoo. www.eurekalert.org/news-release... #PlantScience

New group pic for the new semester! My one-year old lab is growingggggg! #newpi

Today’s rally to save the academy of natural sciences was incredible. Hundreds of people turned out. This is only the beginning. Follow along with save-the-academy.org

My Alice petunia explants already undergoing shoot organogenesis after just 13 days from plating leaf disks. So fast!

I am currently searching for a postdoc to work on the evolution of adaptations, cold acclimation, and freezing tolerance in switchgrass. The position entails lab, growth facility, bioinformatics, and fieldwork. careers.msu.edu/jobs/postdoc...

*Adenophora triphylla* www.botany.one/adenophora-t... A plant with an unusual number of names. #Botany #PlantScience

After ~30 years of transforming Agro with the freeze-thaw method, I finally directly compared resuspending in CaCl2 versus LB. LB aliquots gave ~3x as many colonies.

We hope you've enjoyed today's YOUR Journey — OUR Story theme for A Day for BSA! Thank you to everyone who celebrated, shared, & gave to the Endowment. This campaign runs through Aug 31, & small gifts add up. If all members gave $10, we'd raise $30,000! Donate Here: day-for-bsa.botany.org/2026

🌿 Midday joy break! "Plant People for the Win" is a brand-new music video celebrating plant people everywhere, made just for us by Doc Martine and the Botaneers. Turn it up and yell PLANT PEOPLE! 🌱 Watch here: youtu.be/wlyVPuerA0U #DayforBSA #PlantPeopleFTW #IamaBotanist

My home society that helped me to grow from a baby grad student to now 💚 After serving on the board, my appreciation for BSA only increased bc I saw firsthand how strongly the society values its students, community & mission. An amazing community of and for plant people! #DayforBSA #plantpeopleFTW

Delighted to share our latest greenhouse surprise. Plant inset interaction was no part of my research program but I guess it is now. ☠️💀🪦🤬 #newpi

NSF just announced its GRFP solicitation due in October - deadline varies by field: www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo... Now for the bad news... * NSF estimates they will issue 1,500 awards, down from 2,500+ last year. * NSF removed STEM Education and Learning Research as a Major Field.

Discussed an idea with my student, I asked “what do you think?” She said “I subscribe to it!” I was too busy thinking “this is what young people say now????” and missed my golden opportunity of responding “please like and turn on the notification bottom”. Aiyaiyai!

If you saw our new paper and thought "I didn't know aquatic plants use CAM!" boy do we have a fun project for you! Our lab is developing high throughput methods to screen plants for CAM. Do you work on, or know of, a plant that you think could be using CAM? Let us know! 👉 forms.gle/AyQc5KgzEYoM...

AI RANT Following the cancellation of three major debut book deals over AI suspicions, I decided to put my own (needless to say, 100% human-written) prose to the test. My detector of choice was Originality AI, and the results proved to be jarring, to say the least. 🧵1/5

See our new paper examining how monkeyflowers handle salt spray landing on their leaves! Salt spray lands on plant leaves in coastal habitats around the world, yet we know little about how plants survive this stress.

Looking for sci comm opportunities? Join us as a writer for American Naturalist press releases! These write-ups are primarily written by graduate students and other early-career scientists. No experience required; we have editors to help along the way. Apps due Sept 1. Please share widely :D

Our great sister department is recruiting!