The Senate’s top watchdog on government waste, in a new report Thursday, said taxpayer money has gone to fund such programs as Jell-O wrestling at the South Pole, testing shrimp’s exercise ability on a treadmill and a laundry-folding robot, all funded by the National Science Foundation.

In one instance NSF employees, in their spare time, engaged in a Jell-O wrestling contest at the agency’s McMurdo research station at the South Pole. In another case, the agency paid $559,681 to test sick shrimp’s metabolism, which one researcher said was “the first time that shrimp have been exercised on a treadmill. Mr. Coburn’s report noted that the researchers found sick shrimp “did not perform as well and did not recover as well from exercise as healthy shrimp”

Mr. Coburn, in his report, said audits of NSF show it regularly fails to meet management goals. One 2005 audit found almost half of the reports the agency is required to file were submitted either late or not at all.