It’s hiring season in my lab, and I’m always impressed by how many young, ambitious scientists are out there, just needing a chance to shine. Too often, though, that chance gets obscured by avoidable mistakes. Here are 5 common mistakes, and also some things that work 🧵👇

Interesting. So the time saved does not come back as thinking time, it comes back as pressure to start the next paper. More, faster, worse. Worth asking which incentive structure ever made that look like a solution.

Carl T. Bergstrom@carlbergstrom.com · 3w ago

1. We—@eduede.bsky.social, @mjcrockett.bsky.social, Kevin Gross, and I—have a new preprint on the arXiv today, based on ideas that emerged during an @sfiscience.bsky.social workshop in November 2024: The unintended consequences of large language models as a labor-augmenting technology in science.

🔬 Postdoc opportunity: how do plant cells sense and respond to changes in their cell walls? Join the @cellwalldynamics.com lab @umeaplantsciencecentre.se, integrating Brillouin, O-PTIR & spatial transcriptomics on the Arabidopsis root. Deadline 31 Aug 2026 🔗 buff.ly/cPFemXd #PlantScience #Postdoc

Hey Siri, show me a system that looks to filter out the scientific discoveries of women with seniority. The paper confirms the hostility many of us feel is baked into the editorial & peer review community (sitting behind a veil of anonymity) that prefer to see papers led by women thrown out.

Javi Ibarrondo@jibarrondo.bsky.social · 4w ago

Editorial and peer review dynamics at elite general science journals | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🧪

See you at 15:00 BST today for our quantitative plant imaging webinar with @laurabacete.bsky.social and @sventruckenbrodt.bsky.social.

FocalPlane @focalplane.bsky.social · 2mo ago

🔬🌱Register now for the second webinar in our new series on quantitative plant imaging. We’ll be hearing about using Brillouin microscopy to measure plant cell wall mechanics from @laurabacete.bsky.social, while @sventruckenbrodt.bsky.social will introduce PlantEx. 🗓️16 July at 15:00 BST

Less than one week to go! We're excited to hear talks from @laurabacete.bsky.social and @sventruckenbrodt.bsky.social. Join us online on Thursday 16 July at 15:00 BST.

FocalPlane @focalplane.bsky.social · 2mo ago

🔬🌱Register now for the second webinar in our new series on quantitative plant imaging. We’ll be hearing about using Brillouin microscopy to measure plant cell wall mechanics from @laurabacete.bsky.social, while @sventruckenbrodt.bsky.social will introduce PlantEx. 🗓️16 July at 15:00 BST

Tired of AI-generated figures? I asked our talented scientific illustrator Manon Zuurmond to draw some of the instruments and lab equipment we missed in NIH's otherwise fantastic BioArt resource. First batch now available as CC BY. Free for everyone to use in publications: github.com/Center-for-P...

It was a pleasure to be a small part of this story!

Stéphanie Robert@srobertgroup.bsky.social · last mo.

The latest paper of the group on pavement cell shape acquisition! Work from @sandeep18887.bsky.social @sharmavinod.bsky.social @adrienheymans.bsky.social @petergrones.bsky.social in collaboration with @cellwalldynamics.com @umeaplantsciencecentre.se pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42381545/

🧪A fantastic opportunity to join an interdisciplinary research environment! Interested in combining mathematical modelling with cell wall biology? Take a closer look at the first project, led by @laurabacete.bsky.social, Christiane Funk and Yanjun Zan, and 📅 Apply by 17 September

IceLab@icelabumu.bsky.social · last mo.

🚨 NOW SEEKING POSTDOCS 🚨 The call for IceLab Interdisciplinary Postdoc Fellows funded by Kempestiftelserna is open until Sept 17 2026! 3 postdocs will join teams working at the interface of theory, computation, & experiment. #Postdoc #ComputationalBiology #ComplexSystems #InterdisciplinaryResearch

Join the team for this very cool project! Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions. And since it’s a very interdisciplinary project, reposts to reach the right person (not necessarily with a plant background) are appreciated 😁

Umeå Plant Science Centre@umeaplantsciencecentre.se · last mo.

🧪VACANCY: Computational biologist, modeller or biophysicist? Join Laura Bacete @cellwalldynamics.com and Christiane Funk in an interdisciplinary @icelabumu.bsky.social postdoctoral project exploring cell wall sensing in the microalga Chlorella vulgaris. Apply by 17 Sept👇 www.umu.se/en/work-with...

We are hiring! Come and join the team reach out here, by email, or find me in person at #ICAR2026 if you happen to be in Singapore this week 🌱🧱🚨

Umeå Plant Science Centre@umeaplantsciencecentre.se · 2mo ago

🧪🌾VACANCY - How do cell-wall properties shape plant growth?🔬 Join Laura Bacete's group @cellwalldynamics.com as a postdoc and combine plant cell wall biology, biophysics and spatial transcriptomics. Apply by Aug 31👇 www.umu.se/en/work-with...

Just presented at #ICAR2026 in Singapore: What if plants use nanoscale vibrations to communicate cell wall states? Exciting to share our latest thinking and hear what the community makes of it 🌱. Thanks to the organisers for the opportunity!

Heading to the #ICAR2026 poster session today 18:00–19:00? Make sure to visit @manju-mhj.bsky.social at #A095! Find out how we are using cutting-edge tools like Brillouin microscopy and O-PTIR to capture the earliest stages of plant cell wall integrity 🌿🔬 (Catch her Thursday at the same time too!)

🌿 A slice of the PlantWallK delegation at #CellWall2026 in Porto! If you want to know more about COST Action and how to get involved, come find us, we are happy to chat! 😊 #PlantWallK #COST

Poster session today 15:45–16:15 at #CellWall2026. come find our very own Klaudia Ordyniak at PO9_11! Mild stress or real damage? Find out how ZAT11 and ZAT18 help plants tell the difference 🌿

Thrilled to be at #CellWall2026 in Porto! Yesterday I presented our lab’s latest work, with a focus on our Chlorella research. Fantastic discussions and great connections so far! Want to know more? Find me around or catch Klaudia at poster PO9_11, we’re happy to discuss cell wall signalling! 🌱🧱🚨

The 1st #PlantWallK meeting brought together 80+ researchers. Cell biologists, physicists, biochemists, modellers, all converging on 1 structure: the plant cell wall. Two days of talks, posters, and cross-disciplinary debate later, the collaborations are set. The work begins! #PlantBiology #CellWall

Register now for the 2nd webinar in our new series on quantitative plant imaging, hosted by @ajcellbio.bsky.social & @joemckenna.bsky.social. In this webinar we’ll hear from @laurabacete.bsky.social on Brillouin microscopy & @sventruckenbrodt.bsky.social on expansion microscopy. 🗓️16 July, 15:00 BST

Register for FocalPlane features... quantitative plant imaging across scales - FocalPlane

Register for FocalPlane features... quantitative plant imaging across scales - News

focalplane.biologists.com

"If 100 people apply for one job, 99 will fail" –and it's not random who those 99 are. Great interview on women, failure, and who academia sometimes feels built for 👇

eLife@elife.bsky.social · 3mo ago

“What if failure isn’t a personal shortcoming, but a structural feature of academic life?” In @ecrLife, Dr Marina Cano and Dr Rosa García‑Periago discuss "Women, Failure and Academia." buff.ly/S7tRd9o?utm_...

🧵 It’s happening! The #PlantWallK kick-off meeting is officially underway in sunny Prague 🇨🇿 Over the next 2 days, researchers from across Europe (and beyond!) will come together to push the frontiers of plant cell wall science. Stay tuned for live updates! #PlantWallK26 #COSTAction

🧪🌾NEWS - @laurabacete.bsky.social receives an Emerging Investigator Grant from the @novo-nordisk.bsky.social🔬 The project DYNAMO explores how chemical and mechanical changes in the plant cell wall help coordinate growth and stability. Read more: www.upsc.se/about-upsc/n...

Watching your 1st PhD student reach their half-time seminar is something else🥹Klaudia is an excellent scientist and a reminder that progress is a steady, purposeful process: one step after another, until you stand up and tell your story with real care and enthusiasm. So proud of how far you’ve come🌱

Plant Cell Wall Dynamics Lab@cellwalldynamics.com · 3mo ago

Another highlight this week in the Cell Wall Dynamics Lab: our PhD student Klaudia Ordyniak nailed her half-time seminar today at @umeaplantsciencecentre.se Presenting her work on transcriptional regulation of Cell Wall Integrity signalling, so proud! 🎉 (1/2)

And they won!! Congrats team Umeå and particularly congrats to @manju-mhj.bsky.social!!! 🎉🎉🎉🎉 It was like watching the Eurovision Song Contest but much better!!

Plant Cell Wall Dynamics Lab@cellwalldynamics.com · 3mo ago

And to close the day, we’re watching live the EC2U Science Contest from Turku, with our PhD student Manju representing the Umeå delegation on stage! Go Manju! 🏆🔬 (3/3)

Want to support Manju and the Umeå delegation or just enjoy a fantastic science contest? 🎙️🔬 Tune in to the EC2U Science Contest live from Turku right here: 🎥 www.youtube.com/live/l7NNk-3...

EC2U Science Contest - 2026

YouTube video by EC2U Alliance

youtube.com

And to close the day, we’re watching live the EC2U Science Contest from Turku, with our PhD student Manju representing the Umeå delegation on stage! Go Manju! 🏆🔬 (3/3)

Then we had the pleasure of hosting an excellent invited seminar by Prof. Yoselin Benitez-Alfonso @yoselin.bsky.social from the University of Leeds. A fantastic talk on cell walls, plasmodesmata and callose. So great to have you in Umeå! 🌱 (2/3)

Very busy day in the Cell Wall Dynamics lab today! We started with our master’s student Sehyeon Kim defending a brilliant Master’s thesis at @umeaplantsciencecentre.se. Congratulations Sehyeon! 🎉

Hi Genetics/Comp-Bio community 👋 Interested in mentoring a comp-bio research student in East Africa over the summer? Do you have any experience in bioinformatics, biostats, genome/RNA-seq analyses, ML, or metagenomics? We'd love to have you as a mentor in our new program! 🧵 (1/n)

Gita Gopinath writes “A painting of the end of meritocracy: A meeting of the two largest economies and not one woman at the table.”

🌱 Big news! We received a Novo Nordisk Fonden Emerging Investigator Grant (DKK 12.5M – around €1.7M) for project DYNAMO. 5 years to understand how plant cell walls signal the growth to strength switch. So proud of the whole team. Let's go! 🧱⚡ Read more: www.cellwalldynamics.com/time-to-cele...

Time to celebrate: The Cell Wall Dynamics group gets major grant! | Green cell wall dynamics lab

The Novo Nordisk Foundation invests DKK 12.5 million in five years of research on plant cell wall signals at Umeå University

cellwalldynamics.com