6. $1.5 million to put a mudskipper fish on a treadmill.
The New York Post reported:
“The National Science Foundation and UC San Diego spent $1.5 million to put a mudskipper fish on a treadmill, testing its flopping speed and need for oxygen.”
It is hard to imagine how it could be possible to spend this amount of money on such a simple procedure, but the National Science Foundation has that skill.