The Golden Fleece

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The first Golden Fleece we gave to an agency that spent the first one went to the National Science Foundation. Spent $83,000 and try to find out why people fall in love. And then... Then I gave it to an agency. He gave one to the Agriculture Department for a $46,000 study of how long it takes to cook breakfast. One to view a law enforcement assistance administration for a $27,000 inquiry into why inmates want to escape from prison. It just sort of goes on and on. How do these things happen? That's the question. They happen because people come in and they'll spend $50,000, $60,000 before coffee

After years of being publicly shamed for “fleecing” the taxpayers with their frivolous and obscure studies, scientists decided to hit back with… an awards show?! This episode, we gate-crash the Grammys of government-funded research, A.K.A. the Golden Goose Awards. The twist of these awards is that they go to scientific research that at first sounds trivial or laughable but then turns out to change the world. We tell the story of one of the latest winners: a lonely Filipino boy who picked up an ice cream cone that was actually a covert vampire assassin. Decades later, that discovery leads to an even bigger one: an entire pharmacy's worth of new drugs hidden just below the surface of the ocean.

EPISODE CREDITS:

Reported by - Latif Nasser and Maria Paz Gutiérrezwith help from - Ekedi Fausther-KeeysProduced by - Maria Paz Gutiérrez and Matt Kieltywith help from Ekedi Fausther-KeeysOriginal music and sound design contributed by Matt Kieltywith mixing help from Arianne Wack. Fact-checking by Emily KriegerEditing by Soren Wheeler, who thought the whole episode should have been a little shorter.

Special thanks to Erin Heath, Haylie Swenson, Gwendolyn Bogard, Valeria Sabate and everyone else at AAAS who oversee the Golden Goose Awards. Also to Maggie Luddy, and former Congressman Jim Cooper, Terry Lee Merritt at University of Utah, Jim Tranquada, John McCormack, and the Cosman Shell Collection at Occidental College.

CITATIONS:

Videos -

Gorgeous slo mo video of cone snails hunting (https://zpr.io/uiWrS3J2BuZM).

A recent segment from our down-the-hall neighbors at On The Media (https://zpr.io/VZHSLPdkdAxH) about breakthrough science featuring the late Senator William Proxmire.

Check out dazzling documentary shorts on each of the Golden Goose Awards winners (https://zpr.io/Tpxxrzzuz6GS) on their website.

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Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.