Duck Genitalia Researcher Defends Her Work

A scientist who studies duck penises and vaginas wants the world to know she's no quack after her work has come under fire for receiving federal funding.

Terrible puns aside, this controversy started after conservative website CNSNews.com called out a multi-year $384,949 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant for Yale University evolutionary biologist Patricia Brennan to study duck genitalia as wasteful government spending. At Slate, Brennan argues that this basic science is exactly what the NSF is supposed to fund. Strange-seeming basic research often evolves into new innovations and realizations, after all. And if any government agency uses its cash carefully, it's NSF, which funds less than 10 percent of the animal behavior grant proposals it receives. None of this stops politicians from periodically reading some out-of-context research report and making wide-eyed accusations that the government is spending millions on shrimp treadmills, however.

Oh yeah — and duck sex is just really weird, as this Q&A with the discoverer of gay waterfowl necrophilia illustrates.  

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