[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMO8Pyi3UpY[/youtube]If you haven’t heard about it, read here or listen to this. I see Senator Coburn’s point about the Antarctic jello wrestling (surely another instance of Scientists Behaving Badly), but I must confess to having witnessed Dr. Emmett Duffy put very tiny eusocial shrimp on very tiny treadmills in communist Cuba. Surely on Uncle Sam’s dollar!!! And isn’t eusociality just communism in nature? Someone needs to alert Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli who famously “investigated” climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann (Mann was recently cleared by the Feds). Let the witch shrimp hunt begin!
Shrimp on a treadmill?!
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2 responses to “Shrimp on a treadmill?!”
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Dude, this is a little too close for comfort. Our esteemed AG has made it very clear that he wants to make a name for himself in the cosmic fight against the forces of Satan such as climate scientists, homosexuals, and supporters of sane health care policy.
As it turns out, there is a personal story here: a colleague and I recently got a grant funded by NSF (hurray!!!) to expand our research on the unique case of repeated evolution of highly social colonies in marine shrimp (about which in 1996 a famous entomologist told the Washington Post, “This is the sort of excitement you would get about finding life on another planet.”). After several delays in disbursing the funds my colleague got a sense from NSF that they were wigged out about the shrimp on the treadmill story and wanted to tweak the language of the award announcement so as not to ruffle the feathers of Congressional Representatives with, to put it as politely as I can, no understanding of science or its role in the public good. I am still not sure whether the funds have been loaded. But you can at least sleep soundly at night knowing that the fight against irrelevant scientific research has allowed Rick Perry’s obscenely rich golf buddies in the oil industry to enjoy tax cuts never before seen in the history of western civilization.
On the lighter side, I will say that they picked a great soundtrack for this video!
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Very interesting! As I pressed “Publish” I had a feeling you would probably laugh and look over your shoulder at the same time. But what the hell-let’s live dangerously. I have nothing to hide. Except perhaps my treatise on homosexuality in scleractinian corals. And that work we did on social networks in tardigrades… oh boy.
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