TECHNOLOGY
Scientists Turn Cheap Motel Room Into Lab, Discover Two New Species of Rare Algae
A team of scientists converted an $80 motel room in Nags Head, N.C., into an improvised lab and discovered two new species of algae that could shed light on a key evolutionary transition in early life.
Image: The New York Times · Uploaded by IntraGoals — usage rights confirmed
On a spring day last year, biologist Andrew Willoughby drove three and a half hours to a budget motel in Nags Head, N.C., after arranging to meet a scientist he had only known online.
Julia Van Etten, an evolutionary biologist, met him in the parking lot and led him past a "Do Not Disturb" sign into one of the motel's $80 rooms, which she had quietly converted into a working laboratory. Jugs of brackish water lined the walls, buckets brimmed with marsh grass, and bedside tables doubled as microscope stands.
"Oh my god, these people are legit," Willoughby recalled thinking as he found a place to sit on the edge of the bed.
Over the following days, Van Etten and a small team of researchers examined drops of water for swamp algae. According to the report, the project came together in part because of disruptions to federal science funding under the Trump administration, which pushed the scientists to improvise rather than wait for conventional lab resources.
The makeshift effort paid off: the team identified two new species of a rare organism. Researchers say the find could help illuminate a fundamental transition in the history of life on Earth, though the full scientific implications and details of the discovery were not fully specified in the material reviewed for this report.
This account is based on a New York Times report published Sept. 26, 2026. Additional details, including the identity of the newly discovered species and the broader scientific findings, should be confirmed against the original source before further reporting.