Money for duck d*ck

Seems Harvard got a good chunk of change to study duck dicks:

http://www.recovery.gov/Transparency/RecoveryData/Pages/RecipientProjectSummary508.aspx?AwardIDSUR=9204&qtr=2010Q4

I love spending money on science, but not this type of science.

"Conflict between the sexes over control of fertilization is expected to be widespread among organisms, but its evolutionary consequences are still poorly understood particularly in vertebrate animals." "Ducks are ideally suited to study the evolution of sexual conflict and the evolution of reproductive structures."

They're studying socio-reproductive trends in vertebrates in an attempt to understand the relationship between male and female control on mating trends (some species of social animals mating is controlled by the alpha male, in other species the females select mates or and alpha female will determine all mating pairs), and how this affects physiological adaptations. It sounds like an interesting and legitimate project.

But my title was cool.

Well, ducks can be freaky little bastards sometimes, and is amazing what some scientists will study....

:-p

This article from Politifact contains an interesting discussion with the author of the study. While Politifact's findings (Mostly True) weren't surprising (Marc was good enough to post a link to the actual NSF abstract), the discussion by the scientist lends some light on a unique biological trait and better illustrates why this study was funded.

Bryant wrote:This article from Politifact contains an interesting discussion with the author of the study. While Politifact's findings (Mostly True) weren't surprising (Marc was good enough to post a link to the actual NSF abstract), the discussion by the scientist lends some light on a unique biological trait and better illustrates why this study was funded.

Still don't see why we need to study it. True $380, 000 is a drop and will fund it for what seems at least 2-3 years, but that money, like the money going to find why some lesbians are fatter than others, could be spent on learning something really important. Maybe it's just me, but I would rather give that money to someone like.........you. In my eyes, learning about the inner workings of the planet is much more important than learning how forced copulation effects evolution.

As far as the Sen whatever his name was......even though forced copulation has been quite common in our species, I don't think it happened at such a rate as to cause vaginal evolution.

Never in my life did I think I would type the words "vaginal evolution".

I love useless studies subsidized by the government. Like shrimp on a treadmill

How about this one? Do you think he sore-arse? Dinosaur sex secrets revealed

Miles1 wrote:How about this one? Do you think he sore-arse? Dinosaur sex secrets revealed

Hung like a ankylosaurus...