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Cerabino: Ant researcher frustrated that work is fodder for pesky political attack ads
Brian Fisher was visiting the University of Florida on Tuesday to talk about his favorite subject: ants.
Fisher, the curator of the California Academy of Sciences, successfully applied for a $1.9 million National Science Foundation grant to study ants living on isolated islands off the east coast of Africa.
His research was funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 — better known as the $800 billion federal stimulus program. It has turned Fisher and his beloved ants into fodder for political attack ads paid for by Super PACs opposing Democratic candidates across the country.
We’ve got one of those ads running now in South Florida. It’s the ad with the computerized ants running all over the TV screen as the narrator blasts U.S. congressional candidate Patrick Murphy for supporting “wasteful spending like exotic ant research.”
I guess the word “exotic” is thrown in there to appeal to voters who would only support funding the study of American ants.
The ad against Murphy, which is being paid for by a Super PAC supporting his opponent, U.S. Rep. Allen West, is similar to ant-research attack ads that have been paid for by other Super PACs opposed to Democratic congressional candidates in Oregon, Texas, California and Virginia.
Fisher says it’s “frustrating” to have science get hijacked by politics.
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