Meet Leafy 🌿 The newest member of the #GenesisMission. Built on Reachy Mini from Pollen Robotics and Hugging Face, Leafy is another step toward an experiment you can talk to. A physical avatar for a complete agentic stack for autonomous phenotyping. #Robotics

📅 SAVE THE DATE for the ISRR 13th International Symposium 12th - 17th September, 2027 In Beijing, China. Planning is underway and details will be shared when we have them.

That is hilarious.

Fiona Tribe@fionatribe.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Yes, Swiss scientist Fritz Zwicky coined the term “dark matter” which is impressive, but he also coined the term “spherical bastard” to describe people who are bastards no matter which way you look at them, and I think that should be celebrated more.

Exploring a “Dark Knight Agent” built to observe ruthlessly, test competing hypotheses, and guide experiments under uncertainty. A superhero-inspired detective for science. And bats. From noisy data → to system insight. lmyork.github.io/MVBOT1-Status/ #GenesisMission #AI #AutonomousLabs

Do you know how to get your data AI-ready? Just upload to Zenodo.org with as good a description as you can muster and call it a day. Simply sharing has always been the most important part of open science. #GenesisMission #OpenScience

Spent the past year preparing for the DOE Genesis Mission—upskilling in robotics and AI. Programmed robots first. Now shifting to teaching them. From controlled automation to adaptable, dynamic lab systems. #GenesisMission #LabAutomation

A year ago I started with a cobot and block code. Now: a fully enclosed, safety-integrated, Python-driven autonomous lab system with imaging, custom hardware, and a full GUI. Next: streaming data, agents, and talking to the lab. The future of autonomous labs is open. #GenesisMission #OpenScience

Trying something new: moving from AI-assisted coding toward agentic engineering. Before writing code, we defined: • instructions • target architecture • phased development plan The idea: give AI a clear blueprint instead of a blank page. #AIforScience #ScientificComputing #GenesisMission

Ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight? - The Joker Sometimes it's nice to just watch.

Forced a collision in our plate imaging robot to demonstrate something more important than automation: safe failure and deterministic recovery. Autonomy only works if safety is engineered first. Agentic layer coming up. #AutonomousLabs #GenesisMission

LLMs don’t actually use tools. They’re stateless: text in, text out. “Tool use” is orchestration — structured text that systems parse and execute in between. #AutonomousLabs #GenesisMission

Excited to share our first fully integrated prototype, safety-compliant robotic plate imaging workcell at ORNL—complete with enclosure, Banner SC10 controller, door interlocks, and protective stop with a uFactory xArm 5. #GenesisMission #AutonomousLabs #Robotics #OpenScience #LabAutomation

One year ago I led an effort to standardize microbial imaging at work, procuring a colony doc it imager. We've demonstrated high reliability measures of microbial responses to minerals and to other species. Now, I've created an open-source robotic workcell to do the same. More soon!

Larry M. York@larrymyork.phenotyper.com · 2y ago

Get ready for MicrobeVision

Excited to demo the first safety control system for our robotic workcell. As labs become more automated, it’s easy for safety to lag - getting it right early has been eye-opening. More to share soon as the COBOT Autonomous Lab continues to develop. #MachineSafety #AutonomousLabs #GenesisMission

I've been working on this then it hit me. Is this RhizoVision Tron? With open hardware and software, we can accelerate root, soil, and microbiome research. First, we have to solve the segmentation challenge of roots on soil so everyone can do it. www.rhizovision.com

Studying root systems with germination papers offers high resolution but lacks natural conditions. Using FSPMs and RhizoVision, we analyzed Populus trichocarpa roots, finding thermal time correlation and varying 2D/3D accuracy. Details: spj.science.org/doi/10.34133/p…

Advanced software, RhizoVision Explorer, analysed these images to extract detailed root architecture traits. The team also conducted genetic analysis using DarTSeq technology to identify DNA markers associated with root responses to phosphorus availability.

I upgraded to M365 Copilot which integrated some LLM with all my office apps. Kinda neat, has potential but needs work. On the other hand, when I right click words with red lines highlighting misspelling, there is no correction available! UI: Get the basics right first!

Worth sharing. Pay attention and remember drowning can be calm and quiet, watch out for kids. You know when they're quiet there might be trouble!

Trish Greenhalgh@trishgreenhalgh.bsky.social · last yr.

Thanks for the reminder @janemunday.bsky.social. Every summer, I repost this article DROWNING DOES NOT LOOK LIKE DROWNING. To date, I know of FOUR kids who were saved after someone who'd clicked on the link learnt how to spot actual drowning. Take time to read and pass on. slate.com/technology/2...

At the IPG Root Biology Symposium at the University of Missouri. ChatGPT helped summarize the abstract book in graphical form. Great speakers and familiar faces of root biologists. Thanks to the organizers for inviting me and looking forward to telling you all more about RhizoVision Transformer.

Who makes these UIs? I just want to copy and paste it.

Expanded the vegetable garden again this year - on the right side there. We enjoy planting and harvests throughout the year. Tennessee has a great climate for gardens but the clay soil needs work. What about you? Anybody else garden?

How does #hyperspectral leaf reflectance vary with functional traits, site, and evolutionary lineage in #grasses? New paper, part of a special issue "Advancing Spectral Biology to Understand Plant Diversity Across Scales", check it out: esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

A boy and his drill press. Drilling is an essential part of biology.

Robots.

I'm still comprehending that our new 256 core, 1 TB RAM, 2x NVIDIA L40s analytics server is edge compute at a place like ORNL. AI-enabled image analysis is hungry. I'm fortunate to work with people who know what they are doing!

What, isn't it kinda weird you can't delete your last prompt and model output from context when it's not going well in ChatGPT? That seems like an obvious need after using it a few times.

What is publication post-super intelligent AI? Is writing the same background over and over that important when a chatbot can summarize your field in 3 seconds? It's more clear than ever that we are stewards of reliable experiments including data collection, analysis, and depositing.

Dear 🧪PIs, I'm curious: do u have a #strategy for finishing projects in situations when the hired 🧑‍🔬 changes jobs while the project is still running? *we r a few months b4 project end & there is a 2nd unfin. project (from before my time as #PI). A 🪙 for your thoughts! #PlantScience #GroupLeader

Anyone out there dealt with the issue of your uni's postdoc salary scale being higher than what a grant provides? (NSF postdoc in this case.)