NIH director Dr. Francis Collins complained Sunday that a lack of funding is behind his agency's failure to produce an Ebola vaccine in time to combat this year's epidemic

It cost $592,000 to determine that chimpanzees with the best poop-flinging skills are also the best communicators, and another $117,000 to learn that most chimps are right-handed

$257,000 went to create a companion website for first lady Michelle Obama's White House garden

The NIH budget included $2.4 million for a new condom design whose inventor is now being investigated for fraud

The $30 billion U.S. National Institutes of Health blamed tightening federal budgets on Monday for its inability to produce an Ebola vaccine, but a review of its grant-making history in the last 10 years has turned up highly unusual research that redirected precious funds away from more conventional public health projects.

The projects included $2.4 million to develop 'origami' condoms designed with Japanese folding paper in mind, and $939,000 to find out that male fruit flies prefer to romance younger females because the girl-flies' hormone levels drop over time.

Other winners of NIH grants consumed $325,000 to learn that marriages are happier when wives calm down more quickly during arguments with their husbands, and $257,000 to make an online game as a companion to first lady Michelle Obama's White House garden.

The agency also spent $117,000 in taxpayers' grant dollars to discover that most chimpanzees are right-handed.

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No southpaws: The NIH spent more than $700,000 to find out that most chimps are right-handed, and that those with the best communications skills are also the best poop-flingers

NIH chief Dr. Francis Collins said a lack of research dollars in the past decade has hampered the search for an Ebola vaccine – but his budgets are higher now and NIH already funds some unconventional stuff

'Virtual Sprouts' is a 'web-based gardening game' based on first lady Michelle Obama's White House garden; the quarter-million-dollar project is aimed at teaching nutrition and fighting obesity

The same group of scientists determined, at a cost of $592,000 for NIH, that chimps with the best poop-throwing skills are also the best communicators. But while flinging feces might get another primate's attention in the wild, they discovered, it's not much good in captivity.

'I've never in my life seen a chimp be given a banana for throwing s**t at someone,' Emory University psychologist Bill Hopkins told Wired magazine.

The marital-argument research, conducted at Stanford and Northwestern Universities, involved 82 couples and found that when wives 'downregulated' their negative emotions during a spat, both partners had 'greater marital satisfaction over time.' Not so for men who held their tongues, however.

Part of a $666,000 NIH grant supported a University of Buffalo researcher who determined that watching sitcom reruns like 'Seinfeld' or re-watching old movies helps older people feel re-connected with pseudo-friends from their past.

Another outlay of $181,000 went to University of Kentucky researchers who studied how cocaine use 'enhanced' the sex drive of the Japanese quail.

The researchers' website explains that they chose the birds because they 'readily engage in reproductive behavior in the laboratory' and 'provide a convenient and interesting alternative to standard laboratory rats and pigeons.'

The 'Origami' condom research has become doubly controversial with dueling lawsuits in which the newfangled condom's designer and his assistant are lobbing accusations of fraud and misuse of government funds for trips, cars and cosmetic surgery.

The Washington Free Beacon reported in May that Origami Condom creator Daniel Resnic was accused of spending NIH grant money on an Amsterdam junket, a Cadillac and a party at the Playboy Mansion.

He also is under investigation for flouting research protocols by designating his friends as test subjects and asking them to report back after they tested the product.

NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), the subagency that would ordinarily fund vaccine research for Ebola, provided Resnic with the money beginning in 2006.

Dr. Francis Collins, the head doc at NIH, complained bitterly on Sunday that budget 'cuts' were to blame for his agency's failure to produce a vaccine in time to fend off this year's Ebola virus epidemic.

All coked up and ready to go: Japanese quails have no compunction about mating in front of lab-coated researchers, making them perfect candidates for an NIH study about the effects of cocaine on libido

'Origami Condom' creator Daniel Resnic is accused of spending NIH grant dollars on cosmetic surgery, a Playboy Mansion party and exotic trips, and using his friends as informal research subjects instead of holding a controlled human trial

BUDGET CUTS? Overall federal funding for the NIH (in red) is up 69 per cent since 2000; the NIAID, which is in charge of epidemic disease research, is up 220 per cent

Collins blamed a '10-year slide in research support' in a Huffington Post interview.

But overall NIH funding sits at $30.15 billion this year – up from $17.84 billion in 2000.

NIAID has seen its budget grow by 220 per cent over the same stretch of years.

It took a different NIH department to see the value in giving a University of Missouri team $548,000 to find out if 30-something partiers feel immature after they binge drink while people in their mid-20s don't.

'We interpreted our findings to suggest that, at 25, drinking is more culturally acceptable,' declared a doctoral student who coordinated the government-funded field work.

A generous $610,000 paid for a 120-nation survey to determine how satisfied people in different countries are with their lives.

A staggering $1.1 million funded research into how athletes perceive their in-game surroundings, including one Purdue University study that discovered golfers can putt 10 per cent better if they imagine the hole is bigger.

And $832,000 went to learn if it was possible to get uncircumcised South African tribesmen into the habit of washing their genitals after having sex.

'If we find that men are able to practice consistent washing practices after sex,' researchers at Penn State University told the NIH, 'we will plan to test whether this might protect men from becoming HIV infected in a later study.'

$484,000: Researchers explored whether hypnotists could help postmenopausal women avoid hot flashes

Deep breath and count to ten ... yes, you on the left: Precious NIH research dollars established that marriages are happier when wives calm down quickly after arguing with their husbands

The Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan group that advises federal lawmakers, reported in 2011 that NIH's funding 'has grown significantly over the past 15 years,' including a $10 billion increase solely from President Obama's 2009 economic stimulus plan.

'In 2010, over half of all nondefense discretionary spending for health research and development went to NIH,' CBO noted.

The agency recommended a drastic cut in NIH's funding, citing a 2009 Government Accountability Office report that 'found gaps in NIH’s ability' to keep tabs on what happened to its outgoing grant money.

'Some costs could probably be reduced or eliminated,' the CBO concluded, 'without harming high-priority research.'