11 comments

  • GTP 53 minutes ago
    I have an idea on how life could originate in a motel room :D
  • ouked 1 hour ago
    • vixen99 36 minutes ago
      Thank you !!
  • alpineman 35 minutes ago
    All they needed was a blue UV light
  • tpict 50 minutes ago
    I wonder what the author thinks steampunk means
    • dekhn 36 minutes ago
      Right- that's really just a version of a worm pick. I use similar tools (including a mouth pipette... remember kids, in chemistry: don't pipette by mouth, in biology: oops I think I just inhaled something!) working with tardigrade. If it was steampunk there would be some sort of goggles, leather, gears, and a tincture of laudunum.
  • danso 1 hour ago
    • Barbing 4 minutes ago
      Thank you! (Also, haven’t seen this kind of gift link that has the little login requirement, suppose they’re looking to strike a better balance.)
  • oofbey 39 minutes ago
    Why did they work in a motel room? The article kinda implies it had something to do with Trump’s funding cuts, but unless I missed something the connection wasn’t made explicit.
    • dekhn 33 minutes ago
      I think it's mainly to be close to the sample collection area while also having a place to do microscopy in semi-privacy. Looking at their equipment, I think they bought everything out of pocket and pay for the hotel on their own.
  • m3kw9 1 hour ago
    I thought they use built up gunk from years in the bathroom to discover new species, so they choose a cheap motel.
  • sevenart 1 hour ago
    non-paywall (perm): https://archive.ph/QpBF1
  • kstrauser 1 hour ago
    Super cool, and I bet housekeeping loved tidying up after turning a motel room into a street biology lab. Honestly, I think I’d prefer to stay in a room previously used to cook meth.
    • _qua 1 hour ago
      You think pond water is the worst thing an $80 motel room has seen?
      • kstrauser 1 hour ago
        > Jugs of brackish water lined the walls. Buckets overflowed with hunks of marsh grass.

        I don’t know, that goes a little above and beyond IMO. One typically doesn’t do science in a house-type setting, for many of the same reasons you don’t carpet a bathroom.

        • Brybry 1 hour ago
          Probably poetic license. You can look at the pictures and see everything looks very clean.

          The jugs are sealed. We can't see any "overflowing" buckets. Looking at some water samples under a microscope is not really that messy.

        • subscribed 1 hour ago
          > for many of the same reasons you don’t carpet a bathroom

          For some reason this is a commonplace in the UK.

          Yeah....

          • stephbook 1 hour ago
            I had a colleague who walked the tiled floor in front of pissoirs in socks..
            • subscribed 24 minutes ago
              Ugh, I just realised my imagination is too good :)
        • pengaru 55 minutes ago
          > for many of the same reasons you don’t carpet a bathroom.

          someone should inform the orange POTUS of this: https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/did-donald-trump-j...