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What do you get for a $500,000 treadmill for shrimp?

You get priceless publicity for a U.S. senator from Oklahoma who’s trumpeting his new report on profligate research spending financed with $3 billion from taxpayers.

And you get a laugh from Dr. David Scholnick, the man who designed and built the treadmill for shrimp using $48 in spare parts.

“The grant was not to run shrimp on a treadmill,” he told the Star on Friday. “These shrimp had been finding bacteria that was making them sick. By understanding if they can recover and how their immune system works, we can understand the bacteria, where it comes from, and how it might affect humans.”

The $500,000 grant came from the U.S. National Science Foundation, a frequent target of U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican and physician, for a large marine biology study of which Scholnick and his shrimp were just one part.

The three-year study ended years ago and the research has been published. The shrimp on a treadmill, however, lives on as a YouTube video star thanks to a clip lifted from the Pacific University professor’s website.

“Scientists have used treadmills for a long time.”

What YouTube and Senator Coburn don’t know is that Scholnick is running lizards on treadmills now.

The lizards have malaria and studying them can help understand a disease that killed more than 1 million people in 2008.

Lizards, like shrimp, are active creatures, said Scholnick, so the best way to simulate their natural activity in a lab is to keep them moving.

And like shrimp, they naturally understand that when the treadmill starts to move, so do they.

“They’re not trained,” he said, still laughing.

The five-year lizard study is reaching the stage of research being submitted for publication.

Taking a break from compiling data, Scholnick was happy to explain why his research takes years.

“First, we had to find the lizards, then sample every lizard we find. Oregon is a big place.

“Then we had to scan the blood to see if it has malaria. We monitor those populations over time. Back in the lab, we conduct a huge number of experiments, for heart rate and changes in metabolism.

“To answer these big questions, you have to be creative and innovative. It takes a lot of time and work and hours.”

Discovery Channel’s Daily Planet,

hosted by former Star science columnist Jay Ingram, has featured Scholnick’s lizards on a treadmill recently.

Like the shrimp treadmill, which was made of a truck inner tube, ball bearings from a skateboard and the motor from an old pump, the lizard treadmill is recycled, too – from a dog treadmill.

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