May 2017, MIT Technology Review by James Temple Reinventing Rice for a World Transformed by Climate Change UC Davis plant geneticist Pamela Ronald wants to create rice varieties that can survive in harsher conditions, including more frequent droughts. "Pamela Ronald stands in front of two rows of…

Andrew Groover is a scientist with the US Forest Service in Davis California and holds a faculty position at UC Davis. He was recently profiled in New Phytologist. What inspired your interest in plant science? I grew up spending much of my time exploring the woods by the Chattahoochee River…

Guest post by Erin Sparks, Guillaume Lobet, Larry York and Frédéric Bouché It is midnight on a cold winter evening and you are scheduled to give a seminar at 8 am the next morning. All you are missing to complete your presentation is one last graphic to illustrate your conclusions. You wearily…

The editorial team at eLIFE has shared some of their tips for writing about your research in an accessible way. In addition to reporting on the outcomes of their plain-language summaries (eLIFE Digests), they provide an excellent set of guidelines to help you write your own plain-language summary. All…

Communicating about science (or anything) on social media sites can expose you to rudeness and worse. In this column by Amber Dance from Nature Careers, several high-profile scientists and science communicators share how they avoid and cope with conflicts. Read more here.  

Here's a short video that uses a metaphor to explain what microagressions are. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDd3bzA7450  

Evan Peck, an Assistant Professor at Bucknell College, writes about how he nearly didn't apply to a job he loves, and what a liberal arts college is. The Jobs I Didn’t See: My Misconceptions of the Academic Job Market Read more here.

If you're applying for an independent position, you'll need to submit a Research Statement about your future research plans. Bethany Hout (@huotbethany) writes about a Pub Club group meeting to discuss how to write a Research Statment. Topics include "What makes a good research statement", "How important…