🌻 The Week in Botany November 27, 2023

November 27, 2023

I’m trying a different method of spotting the popular stories and papers getting shared on social media. This week, they’re pulled from Twitter, Mastodon,...

🦃 The Week in Botany November 20, 2023

November 20, 2023

This week I’ve been working on a new system to track interest in stories on a wider range of sites than just Twitter and Mastodon. I was hoping to have it...

🌻 The Week in Botany November 13, 2023

November 13, 2023

It’s a quick Week in Botany this week, as I’ve been rushed off my feet. I got to Friday evening and then fell asleep with exhaustion and I’m not sure I’ve...

🌻 The Week in Botany November 6, 2023

November 6, 2023

It’s a late finish tonight, as I’ve been supervising the office manager over the weekend. It’s Bonfire Night here, and fireworks make his whiskers twitch....

🎃 The Week in Botany October 30, 2023

October 30, 2023

I’ll start by mentioning a webinar that’s on tomorrow, Plantae Presents: Importance of Self-care and Community Care. It’s happening at 08:00 AM PDT, 11:00 AM...

🌻 The Week in Botany October 23, 2023

October 23, 2023

It’s the last week of summer time in the UK this week. Next weekend the clocks will move back and the evenings will plunge into darkness. If I remember...

🌻 The Week in Botany October 16, 2023

October 16, 2023

If you’ve been affected by the events of this week, then you have my sympathies. It’s left many botanists on social media shocked this week. Here’s a...

🌻 The Week in Botany October 9, 2023

October 9, 2023

This week I got to find out what happens when all the automated systems I use to help me break down. It’s been a really interesting week. I’m hoping next...

🌻 The Week in Botany October 2, 2023

October 2, 2023

I had an unpleasant surprise this week. One of the highlights of going to the Annals of Botany meetings in the summer has been talking with Philip White, one...

🌻 The Week in Botany September 25, 2023

September 25, 2023

It’s been another 7-day week, the second in a row, so I’ve experimented with using AI to summarise the scientific papers. It cuts down on brainwork. At the...

🌻 The Week in Botany September 18, 2023

September 18, 2023

The weather has gone from unbearably hot to cold and wet over the course of a week here. It’s nice to have some autumnal weather for the autumn. I imagine...

🌻 The Week in Botany September 11, 2023

September 11, 2023

It’s been a busy week, but it’s one of those weeks where it feels like there’s something to show for some of the effort. We have ten stories out this week...

🌻 The Week in Botany September 4, 2023

September 4, 2023

Here are the stories shared on Twitter 🐦, Mastodon 🐘 and Newslit 📰. I’ve tagged them this week, so you can see what’s coming from where. There’s being a bit...

🌻 The Week in Botany August 28, 2023

August 28, 2023

With Twitter sharing falling, I’ve started running an experiment on Mastodon to see if I can improve the automated harvesting of share counts, likes and so...

🌻 The Week in Botany August 21, 2023

August 21, 2023

This time with the correct date.

🌻 The Week in Botany August 14, 2023

August 14, 2023

It’s been a puzzling week on Twitter, with some stories getting a lot of traction, but a lot less middle-ground tweets. In other Twitter news, The Thesis...

🌻 The Week in Botany August 7, 2023

August 7, 2023

It’s been a disappointing week. In a week when even cacti are struggling with the climate, I had hoped to launch a weekly round-up of the latest climate...

🌻 The Week in Botany July 31, 2023

July 31, 2023

I think if you want the authentic experience this week, you should punctuate each item with at least two lung-rattling coughs. This week the links are from...

🌻 The Week in Botany July 24, 2023

July 24, 2023

In the past, I’ve mentioned that the email will arrive Monday morning, unless COVID intervenes. My test came back negative, so it’s just a bad cold. This...

🌻 The Week in Botany July 17, 2023

July 17, 2023

Here’s another collection of the stories shared on Twitter. There’s nothing from Mastodon this week. There are plenty of interesting plant conversations...

🌻 The Week in Botany July 10, 2023

July 10, 2023

After Musk killed the APIs for Twitter, the only way to track what’s popular on the site has been human eyeball v1.0. This week’s innovation has been putting...

🌻 The Week in Botany July 3, 2023

July 3, 2023

It’s a grim week this week, with Gabriel Trujillo’s death on fieldwork making the headlines. It’s an unfortunate reminder to make sure of your safety if...

🌻 The Week in Botany June 26, 2023

June 26, 2023

It’s another mixed week. Twitter continues to decline. I think some of that is the effect of summer, but I don’t remember views dropping so much before. One...

🌻 The Week in Botany June 19, 2023

June 19, 2023

I’ve put this issue together slowly, as the air is full of a storm that isn’t quite arriving and leaving my head fuzzy. There might be some interesting typos...

🔥 The Week in Botany, June 12 2023

June 12, 2023

This week I learned that thunderstorm asthma is a thing. The plant connection that it’s caused by winds picking up pollen, and thunderstorms breaking the...

The Week in Botany June 5, 2023

June 5, 2023

It feels like one of those weeks where, if I were feeling lazy, I could copy ‘n’ paste the New Phytologist table of contents as the week’s interesting...

🌻 The Week in Botany May 29, 2023

May 29, 2023

It’s been a quiet week on Twitter this week, possibly due to a lot of plant attention being based at the Chelsea Flower Show. A paper that caught my eye was...

🌻 The Week in Botany May 22, 2023

May 22, 2023

It’s going to be a busy week this week, not least because the Royal Society of Biology is holding its Summer Conference on Thursday. It’s online and free, so...

🌻 The Week in Botany May 15, 2023

May 15, 2023

No Mow May is well underway, though the sound that’s coming through window as I type tells me many of my neighbours disagree. The front lawn is a mix of...

🌻 The Week in Botany May 8, 2023

May 8, 2023

As predicted the various usual aids for reading Twitter failed this week. I can say the links in this week’s newsletter were shared on Twitter, but I can’t...

🌻 The Week in Botany May 1, 2023

May 1, 2023

Another public holiday has snuck up on me. This time it’s May Day. If I can, I’ll be making time to go out and see some bluebells in the woods. Otherwise I...

🌻 The Week in Botany April 24, 2023

April 24, 2023

I’ve been slowly putting this together this weekend due to a large headache, sadly due to the weather rather than any particular event. If it wasn’t the...

🌻 The Week in Botany April 17, 2023

April 17, 2023

This week is a hodge-podge of various methods of finding out what’s trending on Botanical Twitter, not all of them successful. One story most of the methods...

🌻 The Week in Botany April 10, 2023

April 10, 2023

Next week’s email will be difficult. Each week I gather the links you’re sharing on Twitter and Mastodon. If I were to manually check Twitter, I’d need to be...

🌻 The Week in Botany April 3, 2023

April 3, 2023

I was surprised earlier this week when I was told how close the Easter break was. I still thought it was a month away. If I’d realised it was as close as it...

🌻 The Week in Botany March 27, 2023

March 27, 2023

The French version of the site is now live at https://fr.botany.one/. I plan to launch another language this week, but I’m waiting to see what comes out on...

🌻 The Week in Botany March 20, 2023

March 20, 2023

You might remember a while back we had some translations for blog posts available, and wondered what happened to them. The translation management system...

🌻 The Week in Botany March 13, 2023

March 13, 2023

It’s an unusual week, this week, as I’ve reached the end of it fairly satisfied. The website redesign is done and live. From your point of view, the...

🌻 The Week in Botany March 6, 2023

March 6, 2023

It’s a very rapidly put-together issue this week as I’ve spent most of the weekend driving. The result is there’s no careers section this week. It would be...

🌻 The Week in Botany February 27, 2023

February 27, 2023

Working on these emails gets later and later. This week the oven went with a bang. I had planned to listen to practice and qualifying for the E-prix, while...

🌻 The Week in Botany February 20, 2023

February 20, 2023

It’s a busy time in the Annals of Botany office at the moment. The deadline for articles for a special issue: African Flora in a Changing World – Integrating...

🌻 The Week in Botany February 13, 2023

February 13, 2023

I hope you’re well. The scanning for Twitter and Mastodon both seem to be working still, so there’s another collection of the stories you’re sharing. The...

🌻The Week in Botany February 6, 2023

February 7, 2023

Sorry for the delay this week. I’d gone to Wales to see my parents and set this up to come out on schedule. I hadn’t noticed that the email hadn’t come out...

🌻 The Week in Botany January 30, 2023

January 30, 2023

The painkillers are working, so instead of a cat shuffling with one lame leg, I now have a cat galloping on three legs. He needs a lot of supervision,...

🌻 The Week in Botany January 23, 2023

January 23, 2023

Here’s another collection of the stories you’re sharing on Twitter and Mastodon this week. I’m still behind with the Careers section of the newsletter, but...

🌻 The Week in Botany January 16, 2023

January 16, 2023

There’s a plan among some Chinese scientists to use parasitic plants to control invasive species. It’s an interesting idea, but leaves a lot of questions....

🌻 The Week in Botany January 9, 2023

January 9, 2023

This week’s newsletter has been put together at the last minute as I’ve been away most of the week. I should be back at my desk mid-morning tomorrow. There’s...

🎄 The Week in Botany December 19, 2022

December 19, 2022

It’s the last Week in Botany of the year, as I plan to be off work for Christmas week. There’s fewer jobs in the careers section than I’d like. I could...

🌻 The Week in Botany December 12, 2022

December 12, 2022

I’ve been making notes during the week of the jobs and PhD positions I’ve spotted and adding them to the website. It’s made putting together the Careers...

🌻 The Week in Botany December 5, 2022

December 5, 2022

It’s taken longer than usual to compile this week’s newsletter. This is partly due to bronchitis, which has kept me from sleeping. Additionally, every time I...