Taylor Swift: A cultural icon, controversial TicketMaster name, and now a remote phenotype (plant trait) monitoring machine.
Plant Sciences Assistant Professor is a Swiftie to his core. After listening to Swift鈥檚 album Folklore on repeat while he was coding and building the instrument in his lab, naming his machine after her was a natural progression.
Tower Spectrometer on Wheels for Investigating Frequent Timeseries, or TSWIFT, is a 100-foot tower that looms over a field and collects data on plant performance. A recent, led by lab-member Christopher Wong highlights TSWIFT鈥檚 potential.
(Bonus points if you can find the nine Taylor Swift song and album references!)
Watch you breathe in, watch you breathing out
TSWIFT effectively allows scientists to watch plants 鈥渂reathe,鈥 according to Magney.
Magney and his Fearless team within the 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis Plant Optics Lab use TSWIFT to monitor hyperspectral reflectance 鈥 or how plants reflect light 鈥 by measuring the photons that come off the plants. The way plants reflect light tells scientists how much photosynthesis the plants are doing, how much stress they are under, and how they grow 鈥 all on an hourly timescale.
Because TSWIFT continuously collects this data throughout the Daylight and across seasons, it overcomes the time and labor limitations that typically impact remote sensing instruments. Truly a Mastermind.
TSWIFT can inform a wide range of studies 鈥 from photosynthetic performance to identifying plant varieties more resilient to stressors like drought, climate change, and increasing food crop demands.
Wildest dreams
But what about Taylor Swift? Unfortunately, she does not know that she has a scientific instrument named after her. But if one day she does, it would be a 鈥渄ream come true鈥 said Magney: 鈥淭he pinnacle of my career.鈥
However, TSWIFT isn鈥檛 his Debut project or his only project named after pop queens. There鈥檚 also BEYONCE, CARDI-C, GAGA, and he鈥檚 currently working on a MILEY. Magney seems to have a Reputation for his work.
鈥淲hile we take our science seriously, it鈥檚 important for people to remember there鈥檚 a human side to this, too, and that we like to have fun,鈥 said Magney.
Well Taylor, we hope you know the plant sciences world knows you All Too Well.
Malia Reiss is a science news intern with 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis Strategic Communications. She studies environmental science and management at 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis.
Media Resources
Kat Kerlin, 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis News and Media Relations, 530-750-9195, kekerlin@ucdavis.edu