5 Science Experiments That Seemed Useless — And Were Anything But

(via All That Is Interesting) As any scientist knows, securing funding for a research project can be an incredibly trying experience — especially if funders deem the proposed research a bit pointless. Sometimes, though, a leap of (funded) faith can allow these “pointless” endeavors to yield some truly transformative results. The Golden Goose Award exists to reward precisely that. Each year since 2012, judges award a Golden Goose to scientists whose federally-funded research may have sounded frivolous, but produced important scientific breakthroughs. Here are five Golden Goose winners which prove that major innovation can come from even the most niche of ideas.