美國科學基金會被批研究專案太古怪

A Republican senator's report on the National Science Foundation criticizes the group for projects including a $500,000 study involving a shrimp on a treadmill。

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., authored a report criticizing the foundation's spending on projects that also include $1.5 million to build a laundry-folding robot, a $300,000 study on whether Facebook's FarmVille game promotes personal relationships and even a $400,000 study on Jell-O wrestling。

"We have 12 different agencies doing pure research, and we're duplicating and we're not sharing the information across," Coburn said。

The National Science Foundation responded to the report with a statement saying its projects "have advanced the frontiers of science and engineering, improved Americans' lives."

Agency officials noted their projects have assisted in the creation of barcodes as well as Web site Google。

美國一名共和黨參議員近日提交報告，批評美國國家科學基金會“胡鬧”，包括花費50萬美元研究蝦米在跑步機上的運動能力。

這位名叫考博恩的議員在署名報告中還斥責該基金會把150萬美元用於研究“能疊衣服的機器人”，把30萬美元用於研究“臉譜網的虛擬農場遊戲能否改善人際關係”，用40萬美元研究“在果凍裡摔跤的技能和注意事項”等。

考博恩在接受採訪時說，“我們有12家不同的機構在做純學術研究，他們彼此並沒有共享資訊，而是在做低水平的重複勞動。”

而美國國家科學基金會則在宣告中迴應，他們的研究專案“促進了美國尖端科技和工程的發展，改善了人民生活”。

基金會官員則稱研究專案促成了條形碼的發明，也促成了像谷歌這樣著名網站的誕生。