"A scrappy science project led to a significant discovery: two new species of a rare organism that could elucidate a fundamental transition in the history of life on our planet."
"On a spring day last year, Andrew Willoughby drove three and a half hours to a cheap motel in Nags Head, N.C. From the parking lot, he texted a stranger he had met online.
Julia Van Etten appeared, ushering him past a “Do Not Disturb” sign into one of the motel’s $80 rooms, which she had secretly turned into a makeshift lab. Jugs of brackish water lined the walls. Buckets overflowed with hunks of marsh grass. Bedside tables served as microscope stands.
“Oh my god, these people are legit,” Dr. Willoughby, a biologist who studies plant genomes, thought to himself as he found a spot to sit on the corner of the bed.
Over the next few days, a small group of scientists led by Dr. Van Etten, an evolutionary biologist, scoured drops of water for swamp algae. The team — brought together, in part, by disruptions and despair over the Trump administration’s freezes to federal science funding — then made an exciting discovery."
Carolyn Y. Johnson reports for the New York Times September 26, 2026.
