
Insights from a survey of mentorship experiences
What do mentees want and need from their mentors, and are they getting it? How do factors such as gender identity and internationalism affect the quality of mentor/mentee interactions? Results from a survey of more than 2000 mentees (mostly postdocs and graduate students) are reported, along with a thorough…

Optimizing short-format training: Effective, inclusive, and career-spanning professional development
Short-format training (SFT) provides opportunities for people to acquire knowledge and skills outside of traditional degree-granting programs. Unfortunately, in spite of good intentions, there’s evidence to suggest that the SFTs aren’t always very effective, and that the knowledge gained doesn’t…

Running a sustainable, values-drivenresearch group in the next generation
This is a fantastic article to help new, future, and even current lab heads think about their postures, priorities, and practices. It was developed through a workshop held during the Arabidopsis meeting, originally scheduled for 2020 but held online in 2021 and run by several scientists who recently…

An experimental protocol for teaching CRISPR/Cas9 in a post-graduate plant laboratory course without sequencing (Biochem Mol Biol Educ)
Experience is the best teacher, so hand-on learning is invaluable for students of biology. If you have the opportunity to teach with a laboratory course and haven’t yet incorporated a module that incorporates CRISR/Cas9, you’re in luck! Here, Mayta et al. share the design of the laboratory course…

Building back more equitable STEM education: Teach science by engaging students in doing science (bioRxiv)
I firmly believe that the experience of doing science (observing, framing questions, designing and carrying out experiments, and interpreting findings) is the best way to cultivate future scientists, as well as a science-literate public (which we so clearly need). This preprint by Elgin et al. (it’s…

Plants as Grandparents, Doctors, and Chefs - A Webinar Series Organized by GeneSprout
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A collective of young plant scientists, known as GeneSprout Initiative, share their research in a December webinar series.
What is GeneSprout Initiative?
GeneSprout Initiative is a collective of young plant researchers based in the Netherlands and Belgium. We want to increase public engagement…

Perspective. Plant awareness disparity: A case for renaming plant blindness (Plants People Planet)
If there is one thing we agree on, it is that plants are underappreciated, leading to consequences spanning from ecosystem collapse to poor rates of funding. This effect, and efforts to remedy it, have been discussed in terms of “plant blindness”. In this Perspective, Parsley summarizes many…

Veg-A-Sketch
Painting Plants with Light
I would like you to take a moment and reflect back on your memories of plant science in elementary school…
For many of us, not much will come to mind. Science curriculums often do not elaborate on plant science beyond photosynthesis. However, photosynthesis is certainly…