Chickens well funded

Chicken project gets off the ground 

At Nature News:

In a bid to learn more about the chicken and its lineage, the UK
government is funding a £1.94-million (US$3.3-million) effort to
determine how the chicken went from being a wild fowl roaming the
jungles of southeast Asia several thousand years ago to one of the
world’s most abundant domesticated animals. The Cultural and Scientific
Perceptions of Human–Chicken Interactions project — ‘Chicken Coop’ for
short — will examine human history from the perspective of the fowl.

OK, well the article does go on to note some practical point to better understanding their evolution:

 a better understanding of the bird’s history will help people to address
some of the problems facing chickens and the poultry industry, such as
avian influenza and leg weakness among broiler chickens. Research on
ancient breeds could help us to “refresh the genetics” of broilers, he
suggests. Last month, Hutchinson ran a conference, Towards the Chicken
of the Future, to tackle such issues. “Science has got us into this
problem through intense selection,” he says. “It can maybe help us out
of it.”

but I'm not sure that's how I would prefer to see science money being spent.