They spend a few thousand bucks conducting the experiments and collecting samples in those countries and then pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to gene sequencing companies. They get a spreadsheet in return that no one knows how to read or that has glaring discrepancies. I had to explain to 3 biogists that even though their PCA plot looks decent, a total explained variance of like 10% is not much to brag about. They had grants in the millions of dollars...