Chenxin Li, PhD
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chenxinli2.bsky.social
Chenxin Li, PhD
@chenxinli2.bsky.social
Or just “Li” |
Assist. Prof. @ Plant Bio Michigan State U. |
Also post data visualization |
Lab: https://cxli233.github.io/cxLi_lab/ |
GitHub: https://github.com/cxli233
Pinned
Here is a thread showcasing my GitHub repositories: 1) Friends Don't Let Friends Make Bad Graphs. An opinionated essay on good and bad graphs.

My popular one by a long shot with 6.4k stars and 248 forks. github.com/cxli233/Frie...
Reading news:
a man in a black shirt is making a funny face with his finger .
Alt: “Wait never mind”
media.tenor.com
January 5, 2026 at 1:21 AM
Reposted by Chenxin Li, PhD
The Holiday is almost over, and the first publication of 2026 is out. Happy New Year
A review written as part of the PhD study of Francisco Rios.
Beyond Tanacetum cinerariifolium: Advances in Pyrethrins Biosynthesis and Prospects for Engineered Cell Factories
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Beyond Tanacetum cinerariifolium: Advances in Pyrethrins Biosynthesis and Prospects for Engineered Cell Factories - Molecular Biotechnology
Pyrethrins are powerful natural insecticides traditionally extracted from the flowers of Tanacetum cinerariifolium. While effective and environmentally friendly, their agricultural production is limit...
link.springer.com
January 4, 2026 at 11:18 AM
Well, Nazi Germany invaded Poland first before they invaded France and Britain. Just saying.
Watch this. Watch again.

"This incredible thing last night... We have to do it again [in other countries]. We can do it again, too. Nobody can stop us."
January 4, 2026 at 12:41 AM
People used to send their best work to Plant Journal and Plant Physiology.

... but then Nature Plants was invented (in 2015, really not that long ago).
January 3, 2026 at 9:25 PM
Re-upping this for no reason.

These people have lost their minds.
The emperor is cognitively impaired. The central government is controlled by opportunists. Capable people & those with integrity are ostracized.

Oh I am not talking about the US. I am talking about the final years of Chinese Qin dynasty (~200 BCE).
January 3, 2026 at 5:34 PM
Reposted by Chenxin Li, PhD
Fuck this imperialism
Trump: "We're going to have our very large United States oil companies go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure and start making money for the country. And we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so."
January 3, 2026 at 5:11 PM
Reposted by Chenxin Li, PhD
There was one post on the #overlyhonestmethods hashtag back on Twitter years ago, something along the lines of "We couldn't replicate the experiment bc the postdoc who did all the work left to start a bakery." I think often of that one, but with less bemusement these days.
January 2, 2026 at 5:15 PM
Reposted by Chenxin Li, PhD
My Spiny Flower mantis and his wing buds. His next molt would produce fully developed adult wings.

#naturephotography #nature #macrophotography #macro #prayingmantis #mantis #insects #eastcoastkin #photography
January 3, 2026 at 12:56 AM
Reposted by Chenxin Li, PhD
"I don’t know why my fellowship was terminated. I suspect that it has something to do with studying a species that doesn’t fit the binary of what we expect to see in nature, with completely different males and females."

@carlzimmer.com profiles my wonderful coauthor @jjinsing.bsky.social Gift link.
He Studied Why Some Female Birds Look Like Males
www.nytimes.com
January 2, 2026 at 6:10 PM
Re-upping this for no reason.
I was told "if you don't use GenAI, you will be left behind".

But the reality is people include GenAI slop in their work, and if you don't use GenAI, your work is already more careful, higher quality, and more authentic.

I am not just talking about academic papers.
January 3, 2026 at 1:19 AM
I don’t use the phrase “AI slop” that often but now I am going to use it more.
January 3, 2026 at 1:02 AM
Reposted by Chenxin Li, PhD
1. Headlines everywhere today read "Grok apologizes."

This is bullshit. A chatbot is not something that can apologize.

Pretending otherwise is simple laundering these companies' bullshit about what AI is, while diffusing blame away from the human beings that developed and released this system.
January 3, 2026 at 12:12 AM
Segregation, exclusion, and servitude have been recurring themes when it comes to how US treats non-White races. Racism is something to actively resist all the time. If you don’t at least call it out, you are basically going with it.
An official account of the United States government is dreamposting about deporting 80+ million citizens
January 1, 2026 at 5:21 PM
Reposted by Chenxin Li, PhD
Me, a professor: *orders a course pack*
Campus bookstore: give us two months to make sure these 18 copies you requested you don’t violate any publisher’s copyright

Me, an AI company: *violates every publisher’s copyright*
Campus bookstore: we will pay you to offer your services to all students
December 31, 2025 at 8:47 PM
Last night I had a dream about receiving a grant rejection email. The email read “while the reviewers agreed that recent developments in technology has made the proposed project feasible, they were skeptical of the claimed significance.”

Quite realistic comment, considering it was a dream.
January 1, 2026 at 12:02 AM
Let's say we give the concession that AI (at some point) can literally do all the work humans do. If so, then our income must be uncoupled from work, since no one will have work. Therefore, if AI doesn't lead to universal basic income & socialism, then there is no point having AI.
December 31, 2025 at 7:54 PM
Reposted by Chenxin Li, PhD
Modern biology research is biased towards investigating genes that are widely conserved and present in humans. What about genes that ARE widely conserved but NOT present in humans? Can genes missing from humans tell us something about what makes our biology different from that of other animals? 1/8
December 31, 2025 at 7:29 PM
Reposted by Chenxin Li, PhD
We probably don't often plan to snack on tree bark, but we certainly do. Cinnamon is tree bark. There are five species of cinnamon from different geographical locations with distinctly different flavor profiles. This one is Cinnamomum verum, Sri Lankan cinnamon. Eat some bark today!
December 31, 2025 at 4:29 PM
Reposted by Chenxin Li, PhD
Has anyone sequenced Agrobacterium rhizogenes K599? If no I'll send mine to @plasmidsaurus.bsky.social for sequencing as my first experiment of the New Year and share the results + genbank upload. Gonna prepare cells today either way.
a computer generated image of a dna structure
ALT: a computer generated image of a dna structure
media.tenor.com
December 31, 2025 at 4:52 PM
Reposted by Chenxin Li, PhD
My best photographs of 2025, a short thread.

A tobacco hornworm on one of its favorite foods, a garden tomato plant (Texas, May 2025). This one makes the cut because it is more aesthetically pleasing than I was aiming for, somehow.
December 31, 2025 at 5:01 PM
Reposted by Chenxin Li, PhD
Conserved early steps of stemmadenine biosynthesis - Journal of Biological Chemistry www.jbc.org/article/S002...
Conserved early steps of stemmadenine biosynthesis
Stemmadenine acetate is a pivotal intermediate in the production of pharmacologically active monoterpene indole alkaloids. Here, we identify orthologs of stemmadenine acetate pathway genes (SGD, GS, G...
www.jbc.org
December 31, 2025 at 12:58 AM
Seriously ask ourselves if we have to find common ground with people for whom white supremacy is their core moral and political belief.
There was a whole panic last year about Haitians eating people’s pets, boosted by both Trump and Vance two months before the election. People saw that shit happen and still voted for Trump and Vance because they promised mass deportations.

White supremacy is a core part of the Republican base.
December 31, 2025 at 12:27 AM
Reposted by Chenxin Li, PhD
I hate these charts so much because they imply chatgpt is comparable to the internet or phones

You could create the same graphic for full screen pop-up advertising on websites and make them look like ultra-rapid technology adoption when really they were just baked unavoidably into the internet
In 2025, AI became pervasive in American life and the economy, with ChatGPT surging in adoption much faster than any other major technology in memory. @nytopinion.nytimes.com
December 30, 2025 at 7:38 AM
Reposted by Chenxin Li, PhD
A free, open-access library of high-quality organism illustrations for science communication
A free, open-access library of high-quality organism illustrations for science communication
We create vector graphics of model organisms and emerging biological research organisms to enhance our publications. We’re sharing these editable graphics under a CC0 license for other scientists to...
doi.org
December 29, 2025 at 6:03 PM