Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn has raised an eyebrow this week over the concern that the National Science Foundation has been wasting a great deal of money on various projects that he believes aren’t worth a diddly and the squat it rode in on. Among those projects, scientists have been running shrimp on tiny treadmills to “measure the impact of sickness on crustaceans”.
That’s right – we’re training shrimp to be the best at exercising.
The Oklahoma Republican issued a new report Thursday that concludes the National Science Foundation has misspent $3 billion on “waste, fraud, duplication and mismanagement.” It offers a list of research projects that could have been left as questions for the universe.
Among them, $2 million to analyze 38 million photos on Flickr and cross-reference them against the site’s social networking service. Turns out, researchers concluded, that friends generally post photos on the Internet depicting the same place at the same time. (Fox News)
$2 million to analyze Flickr? Let me save them some effort – it’s 30 million photos of dudes in skinny jeans drinking PBR. But let’s go back to the part that really matters – shrimp on tiny treadmills. If there is video of these alleged shrimp running on their alleged tiny treadmills, then I would say the money is well spent. Until then…
*cowboy octopus riding a seahorse crashes through wall, sprays ink message*
Oh there’s a video, friends.
God bless America.
