Nature has called for scientists in the US to defend their work in the face of growing scorn from the political right. Conservative politicians like to express outrage over seemingly obscure or perverse research. Vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin famously scoffed at fruit fly research in 2008 (Check out editor Mark Peplow’s take on Palin in the newschat segment of this 2008 podcast ). And House majority leader Eric Cantor’s YouCut Citizen Review website urges citizens to search the National Science Foundation grants database for “questionable grants,” which they promise to compile into a report and take to the agency.

So what’s the best response when politicians cherry pick grants that sound silly to make federally funded science look like a waste of public money?

The Association of American Universities, a group of more than 60 North American research universities, has an idea, a flyer explaining the usefulness of mocked research done up in a National Enquirer lookalike style.

The flyer, called “Scientific Enquirer” has been up on AAU’s website for a couple of weeks, but Inside Higher Ed drew my attention to it with a story called “Tabloid Science.”

But I had additional questions. For whom was the flyer intended? Politicians? Voters? Scientists who want easy-to-read answers to those who question the country’s research expenditures?

Toby Smith, vice president for policy at AAU, developed the flyer with the help of undergraduate interns Mac Hird, a senior majoring in physics at the University of Texas, Dallas, and Aithi Hong, a junior majoring in history from UCLA. He says the target audience is any member of the House or Senate who might take potshots at science spending. He’s distributing it to federal relations officers at the AAU’s member universities, but says anyone who wants to use it with policymakers, or in the classroom, can download it.

There will be sequels. The next issue will try to explain to the layman why scientists spend millions working on such apparently bizarre organisms as zebrafish and worms. “Model organisms get picked on a lot,” Smith says. the effort is part of a broader project called the “Societal Benefits of Research Illustrated.”

I’m not sure if it is insulting to politicians or just genius to present their point of view in a tabloid format. Are they saying that Eric Cantor and Sarah Palin are most comfortable reading something with lots of pictures and an overgenerous helping of exclamation points?