Dr. Lauren Olinger
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reefecologist.bsky.social
Dr. Lauren Olinger
@reefecologist.bsky.social
Building an autonomous research lab on an island 🏝️ 🤫

Director: @the-vicar.bsky.social

Caribbean reefs 🐠 robotics 🤖 AI 🧠 code 💻 stats 🧮 inverts 🦀
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Building a robotics and AI lab on a Caribbean island certainly has its challenges, but we are settling into our new home quite nicely! 👉🏻 follow @the-vicar.bsky.social if youre interested in robotics and AI for ecological conservation 🧪 #NSFfunded
That’s not a barrel, that’s a tower!! Awesome picture.
November 14, 2025 at 6:40 PM
Reposted by Dr. Lauren Olinger
Last night, I watched one of the best nature videos I have ever seen, from Cornell Lab of Ornithology. I have been in love with hornbills since I lived in Indonesia and Malaysia and saw them every time I went out in the jungle.

You really owe it to yourself to watch this.
Islands of the Hornbills
YouTube video by Cornell Lab of Ornithology
www.youtube.com
November 9, 2025 at 4:11 PM
Reposted by Dr. Lauren Olinger
Now that we have the most powerful computer on our lil’ campus… let’s do some marine science 👏 🧪 🪸 🖥️
November 6, 2025 at 6:47 AM
Building a robotics and AI lab on a Caribbean island certainly has its challenges, but we are settling into our new home quite nicely! 👉🏻 follow @the-vicar.bsky.social if youre interested in robotics and AI for ecological conservation 🧪 #NSFfunded
November 6, 2025 at 6:03 AM
Reposted by Dr. Lauren Olinger
someone should make a website for liberals who don’t hate technology
October 29, 2025 at 2:17 AM
Reposted by Dr. Lauren Olinger
If you're lucky enough to be financially stable and have a few bucks to spare, now would be a really good time to donate to America's food banks. They've already lost a ton of funding this year and with SNAP on the line, more are going to need them in the coming weeks.
U.S. Hunger Relief Organization | Feeding America
Feeding America is a nonprofit network of 200 food banks leading the fight against hunger in the United States. Learn how you can help end hunger in America.
www.feedingamerica.org
October 23, 2025 at 7:40 PM
Reposted by Dr. Lauren Olinger
Latest from ours: www.cell.com/cell-reports...

This is two stories in one: a case study/cautionary tale on developing genetic tools in new organisms, and the first hint at a gene regulatory network for choanoflagellate multicellular development (which turn out to involve a Hippo/YAP/ECM loop!) A 🧵
October 5, 2025 at 10:35 AM
Reposted by Dr. Lauren Olinger
Day 1 of NSF sponsored Diadema antillarum scuticociliatosis time series in Brewers Bay, St Thomas, USVI with @drchriskellogg.bsky.social @viromegirl.bsky.social @aquaticmicrolab.bsky.social and Prof Marilyn Brandt at UVI. After months of planning it was time to figure out what makes sense from
September 27, 2025 at 1:39 AM
Reposted by Dr. Lauren Olinger
🚨Big news🚨

A Pocket Guide to Scientific Writing and Publishing is out🎉

This is the book I wish I’d had 20 years ago — short, practical, and designed to help researchers write & get their papers published

I hope it helps many
Please share with anyone who might benefit!
👉 mybook.to/ScienceGuide
August 12, 2025 at 2:34 PM
Perks of working a little past 5☀️
August 30, 2025 at 3:59 AM
Reposted by Dr. Lauren Olinger
"Sponges are the only animals that if broken down to the level of their cells, can reassemble themselves. A sponge is passed through a sieve to break apart its cells. The cells recognize each other and reform into small new sponges." #shapeoflife #spongeThursday youtu.be/ORV3qV8GFF4?...
Sponges - Time-lapse of Sponge Cells Recombining
YouTube video by Shape of Life
youtu.be
August 21, 2025 at 3:49 PM
Reposted by Dr. Lauren Olinger
🚨 Paper alert! 🚨 After >1 year in review and six (6!) reviewers, I'm thrilled that this paper is finally out! Here, we provide the first data-based record of marine dissolved organic carbon in the geologic past.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
The geologic history of marine dissolved organic carbon from iron oxides - Nature
A direct proxy for past dissolved organic carbon signatures using co-precipitated organic carbon in iron ooids enables reconstruction of marine dissolved organic carbon signals dating back to the Pala...
www.nature.com
August 13, 2025 at 4:11 PM
Quick detour on the way to work this morning
August 4, 2025 at 5:39 PM
NSF employees are being forced OUT of their office by the same goons who forced them back IN to their office a few months ago. 🧪
Report: National Science Foundation headquarters to be taken over by HUD, displacing 1,800+ employees | ALXnow
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) will reportedly take over the National Science Foundation (NSF) headquarters building (2415 Eisenhower Ave.), displacing more than 1,833 NSF emplo...
www.alxnow.com
June 25, 2025 at 2:26 AM
Protest in paradise #nokings #usvi
June 15, 2025 at 12:02 AM
#nokings on St. John usvi 💙
June 14, 2025 at 9:51 PM
Reposted by Dr. Lauren Olinger
energy and water use per chatgpt query is absolutely trivial
June 10, 2025 at 10:00 PM
Reposted by Dr. Lauren Olinger
Happy 18th birthday ggplot2! #rstats
June 10, 2025 at 11:56 PM
Reposted by Dr. Lauren Olinger
Trump's Budget is out. For NOAA, it's exactly what the previous passback document showed.
Trump administration eliminations NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research in its ongoing fight against science and reality.

www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/...
May 30, 2025 at 9:38 PM
Reposted by Dr. Lauren Olinger
Presidential budget is out. Here's NSF. Biggest cut, by amount, is $1 billion, or 66.8%, from MPS (Physics & Math directorate). nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/00-NSF...
May 30, 2025 at 8:20 PM
My heart hurts for Harvard-bound students who lost GRFPs and teams everywhere who have had grants terminated.

A senseless waste of blood, sweat, tears, late nights, strained relationships, abandoned hobbies, frequent moves, financial instability, and mental health.
🧪
May 22, 2025 at 11:50 PM
Wolverine is the formal word for wolf 🫣
Folks, get in here. We’re admitting all the dumb wrong shit we believed until we were way too old.
Fun fact: until I was appreciably into my 20s, I thought they were called oncologists because they were always “on call.”
May 20, 2025 at 6:07 AM
Michael does not approve of the robot hogging the couch.

Sorry bud, firmware update.

🥺🧪
May 16, 2025 at 3:08 AM
Hard agree! Those old American naturalist articles took me on ADVENTURES 😍
let's go back to publishing every weird little thing we see an organism do as a natural history note. i love a good kitchen sink paper that gets into the nitty gritty of a whole-ass system, but when you're trying to research something less well-known, you really need people writing "so one time..."
May 16, 2025 at 1:05 AM