Comment by klibertp

> no, it might lead to better surgery robots, search and rescue robots,

No, that's extremely optimistic, at best. We've learned that cats seem to use their knowledge of their height but not width when choosing to go (or not) through a hole.

That's it. We're promised follow-up research because it might be that, other than height, they also know and use their additional characteristics, like weight.

That's all. Are you seriously suggesting this knowledge might be helpful in building "surgery robots"?

> and countless things that I'm not even capable of imagining.

Maybe. Are the chances of that enough to justify the expense? Couldn't this work be done more cost-effectively (it's about cats - the world is filled with guys who would do all the experiments for free, given instructions, just for their cat(s) to be in a scientific study...)? Especially since we're talking about Hungary, which is not a super-rich nation.

In any case, allocating funds for research is probably a very hard problem, and I know nothing about it. Still, questioning the expenses is something any taxpayer should be able to do. Just give me good reasons why it had to cost $120k to feed 30 cats for a few weeks, and I'll be happily on my way.