The nation’s taxpayer-funded universities and colleges are bracing for massive cutbacks on funding. And that could be bad news for pigeons suffering from a gambling addiction.
The Department of Government Efficiency, run by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are tasked with cutting some $2 trillion dollars in wasteful spending. And much of it is being squandered on university campuses.
For example, the National Institute of Health dished out nearly $500,000 to Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Students there are using the cash to teach pigeons how to gamble with slot machines. How about teaching the pigeons how to use the bathroom instead of pooping on park benches?
Reason reports: “those researchers plan to teach pigeons to use “a monetary-like currency” to decide whether to earn, accumulate, spend, or gamble tokens in a self-contained economic environment. Even though the grant application admits that the focus of this research is on laboratory models rather than practical application, the NIH decided to shower taxpayer money on the birdbrained experiment.”
Emory University got nearly $600,000 to figure out why chimpanzees throw feces. And more than $100,000 to determine whether most chimps throw poop with their right hand or their left hand.
There was $240,000 given to the University of Illinois to get bees addicted to cocaine. And more than $1.3 million was designated to study the mobility of shrimp.
The College of Charleston actually used your tax money to build tiny treadmills to see how fast shrimp can run. Perhaps that money would’ve been better spent seeing how fast Americans could run to the all-you-can-eat shrimp special at Red Lobster?
It looks like the chimpanzees aren’t the only ones throwing their poop.
