In 2011, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., released a report on wasteful spending at the NSF, identifying more than $1.2 billion in losses from waste, fraud, duplication and mismanagement.
This included an $80,000 study on why the same teams always dominate March Madness; $1 million for an analysis of how quickly parents respond to trendy baby names; $2 million to figure out that people who often post pictures on the Internet from the same location at the same time are usually friends; and $581,000 on whether online dating site users are racist.