Nature study confirms resource-hoarding Reflecting Pool algae perfectly models American exceptionalism

BY: @science_correspondentJUL 03, 2026

FIG. 01 A National Park Service ranger with net and maintenance worker with brush stand defeated at the edge of the cyanobacteria-choked Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool as MIT biologists point excitedly at the green bloom.

A new paper has concluded that the rapidly expanding cyanobacteria currently choking the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool possesses statistically significant levels of patriotism.

The findings, published this week in Nature by a team of evolutionary biologists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, suggest that the National Park Service’s ongoing struggle to clean the murky green water is fundamentally un-American. According to the data, the algae’s core biological behavior—unchecked exponential growth, complete monopolization of local resources, and the systemic suffocation of any organism trapped beneath it—perfectly maps onto the historical definition of American exceptionalism.

The research team spent six months observing the Reflecting Pool's ecosystem, successfully isolating the specific mechanism by which the microscopic green sludge expresses its inherent liberty.

FIG. 02 The biological mechanism driving the algae's unchecked expansion is structurally identical to manifest destiny.

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E Pluribus Algae: Why Green Pond Scum Is as American as Red, White and Blue

And why the most patriotic approach to the Reflecting Pool may be to let the algae take over.