Setting the stage All of us remember sitting in front of a tutor and feeling completely inadequate for not understanding something that seemed obvious to everyone else. At the same time, many of us who have mentored students also remember encountering that one student who appeared unable to understand…

There is probably not a plant scientist on the planet who has not heard of AlphaFold (Jumper et al., 2021). Many of you reading this have likely used it. What began as DeepMind’s attempt to apply artificial intelligence to one of biology’s longest-standing problems became a breakthrough that gave…

Plantae Presents: The Benefit of Scientific Societies for Undergraduates to PIs Featuring Catrina Adams, Jennifer Hartley, Dior Kelley, Amy Newell, and Kaitlin Saward   When: Wednesday, June 24, 2026, at 8:00 AM PDT | 11:00 AM EDT | 4:00 PM BST | 11:00 PM Beijing About this Webinar Many plant…

Behind the manuscripts are researchers, professors, professionals, and students dedicated to advancing the field of plant science. You’ve seen our First Authors on Bluesky, X and Facebook— now, read more about why they chose to pursue plant sciences and click on the links to read their articles. Vinod…

The world has grown impatient, especially with science. People want information about things they care about, from people whom they can trust. Trust is built through stories that connect scientific research to everyday life. These stories must feel relevant, told by people who show what they care about…

In research, work never really ends “Happy to give this presentation.”  “Sure, I can take on teaching hours.” “I can do an extra side project.” “I’ll take care of this experiment over the weekend.” Do phrases like that sound familiar? Whether it comes from enthusiasm or guilt,…

In plants, compared to male meiosis, female meiosis has remained largely unexplored. In our recent study published in The Plant Cell (Hu and Prusicki et al., 2026), by live cell imaging, we visualize female meiosis in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, advancing the knowledge of reproductive development. Background:…

It was a cold Tuesday afternoon in my second year when my advisor sat across from me and said, almost gently, "I think we need to reconsider the direction of your project." I had spent the last year optimizing the phenotyping protocol for drought response in a specific Arabidopsis mutant line. I had…