James Portnow, Seattle-based game designer and co-creator of Extra Credits, a web series on pro-social game design.
Raised over $125,000 from over 4,000 people.
James and Extra Credits were featured at SXSW, Gamasutra, and the homepage of Reddit.
Meghan Sebold, Brooklyn-based social entrepreneur and designer.
Raised $5,000 for a sustainable clothing line that uses the textiles and talent of Ghana, West Africa.
Her fashion line, AFIA was featured in EcoSalon, TreeHugger, Refinery29, and is now available in boutiques across NYC.
Aram Bajakian, NYC-based avant-garde guitar player.
Raised $4,000 from fans and strangers to fund his album.
Lou Reed heard Aram and chose him as his new guitarist while Aram's album is now released by John Zorn's Tzadik record label.
Darko Lungulov, Serbia-based award winning international filmmaker.
Raised $9,000 from movie buffs for feature film project Here and There.
Film won "Best New York Narrative" at Tribeca Film Festival, featured in Variety, L.A. Times, New York Times, and was a top-10 indie box office theatrical release.
When Last We Flew, NYC-based Off-Broadway theatrical production team.
Raised $7,000 from theatre fans for the premiere Off-Broadway run.
Show sold-out at NYC Fringe Festival, won a GLAAD Media Award, and was featured in New York Times, Bloomberg, and American Theatre Magazine.
Regan Wann, Kentucky-based small business owner.
Raised $5,000 to expand her tea shop business.
RocketHub campaign featured in the Wall Street Journal exposing her business to millions.
Laura Boyd, NYC-based portrait and landscape photographer.
Raised $6,000 architectural photography project on location in Paris.
Photos featured in Artsicle Photography Show in the heart of Chelsea, NYC via LaunchPad.
Joshua Reuben Lewis, NYC-based singer-songwriter.
Raised $7,500 to record his first album.
Showcased at The Gibson Showroom and made A&R connections at Sony, Warner Music Group, and EMI via LaunchPad.
Paul Davis, Berlin-based fashion designer.
Raised $8,000 from fans and strangers for a new fashion line.
Clothing line featured at Berlin Fashion Week.
Caira Conner, Tennessee based NYU Master of Science.
Raised $2,000 to study Brazilian land and infrastructure development.
Featured in Americas Quarterly, completed innovative research, and submitted successful academic thesis.
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Any contribution of $5 receives: We'll send you a password that will let you access the project blog so you can follow us as our experiment unfolds. We'll also print your name on the thank you page of our project website and send you a pdf copy of our research paper upon publication. 3 Fuelers!
Any contribution of $10 receives: the above, plus we'll mail a thank you postcard depicting a duck from our study to your home. 16 Fuelers!
Any contribution of $25 receives: the above, plus a package of 4 postcards featuring beautiful ducks from the northeastern United States. 8 Fuelers!
Any contribution of $50 receives: the above, plus a custom-printed "Duck Force" mug. 6 Fuelers!
Any contribution of $75 receives: the above, plus a USB flash drive loaded with films from this experiment.
Any contribution of $100 receives: the above, plus a “Duck Force” project T-shirt. 6 Fuelers!
Any contribution of $250 receives: the above, plus a dozen homemade duck shaped butter cookies lovingly baked by Diane. 3 Fuelers!
Any contribution of $500 receives: the above, and one of us will give a talk about our research to a group of your choice. (If you're further than 175 miles from Amherst, MA, plan for travel fees)
Any contribution of $1,000 receives: the above, and we’ll cook you and a friend a duck dinner with organic vegetables while entertaining you with amusing conversation. (If you live outside Western Massachusetts, plan for travel fees -- either to get us to you or you to us.)
Started by Diane Kelly October 31st, 2011
Patricia Brennan and Diane Kelly are biologists at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where they study the evolution of copulatory systems in mammals, birds, and reptiles. The video summarizes the reasons for and goals of the Duck Force project.
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A duck pond in the breeding season is like a singles bar on steroids -- rife with sexual conflict. Males and females pair off, but male ducks also force sex on females that are not their mates, sometimes injuring or even killing them.
A few years ago, one of us (Patty Brennan) discovered that these extreme sexual behaviors have sparked an evolutionary arms race between male and female ducks – a race that has changed the shape of their reproductive organs. Females evolved twisty, complicated oviducts that make it difficult for males to put sperm near their eggs. Males countered by evolving long and twisty penises that rapidly inflate inside the oviduct. The bends and blind alleys in the oviduct seem to be effective at keeping out sperm from unwanted males. But during one of her experiments, Patty noticed that an inflating drake’s penis could burst through a silicone model of an oviduct.
That made her wonder whether the forces produced by explosive eversion could be one factor driving the evolution of the female’s twisty oviduct. To find out, Patty is teaming up with biomechanics expert Diane Kelly to measure the speed and force of the inflating duck penis and determine how it might affect the female’s reproductive tract.
What exactly do we plan to do?
Your contributions will let us travel to a farm in Quebec, Canada that has trained male ducks to provide sperm for artificial insemination. We will let these ducks copulate with a series of transparent model oviducts fitted with force transducers – the process is harmless to the ducks, and isn’t much different from the way the farmers collect sperm. As each duck everts his penis, we will simultaneously film it with high-speed video and measure how hard it hits the wall of the model oviduct.
What will the funds be used for?
Donations will help pay for the construction of model oviducts containing force transducers, as well as our travel and lodging in Quebec. And if we raise more than 100% of our goal, we'll use the money to expand the study and measure the strength and toughness of oviduct tissue. Through the entire project, we’ll let you (virtually) tag along through the stories and video we add to our project blog.
What will this experiment produce?
If successful, this project will provide the first detailed measurements of the physical forces generated by a penis during copulation. It will take the first steps toward testing whether copulatory forces help drive the evolution of those crazy twists in the female’s oviduct. We expect to present these results in talks at scientific conferences and write them up in a paper for a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
Helping to fund this research will let you contribute to our understanding of both the biomechanics of reproductive systems and the role of sexual conflict in the evolution of reproductive structures.
And really, don’t you just want to know?
******Part of the #SciFund Challenge