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Worst Jobs In Science
FortKnox writes "Popular science has the worst jobs in science. Some are silly, some are sick, some make you angry, and some just flat-out suck." And some of them sound fun :)
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And you thought YOUR job sucked...
"They're grown by the thousands just for the purpose of dying in nasty ways."
Does PETA have a hissy-fit, or are they not cute and fuzzy enough to garner their attention?
Here's the printable page.
Hee hee, barnyard masturbator...
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
Actually, the humans have it much worse than the monkeys ever did. From the article:
"Thagard also had the distinction of being the first person ever to clean out animal cages in orbit, on the Spacelab 3 in 1985. Engineers promised him that the cages would be at negative pressure, so none of the weightless waste of 24 rats and 2 squirrel monkeys would escape. But when Thagard opened the cages, air rushed outward, leading to a frantic floating-feces chase scene."
"Come on, let's go drink till we can't feel feelings anymore."
I have a M.Sc. I'm under 30, with no family yet. I see lots of my elders, with ~4-5 years more post-grad education and subsequent lab experience than me, making THE SAME $$ THAT I DO. Now, while this isn't a problem for ME, it's really bad for them. Post-doc'ing has devolved from a training ground for future tenure-track academics to being slave labor with a possible carrot dangled years in your future. There is less tenure-track hiring these days due to budgetary constraints, and a glut of existing faculty who are not very close to retirement. so the odds of any one of these hardworking, bitter and impoverished post-docs "finishing their training" are pretty small. But in the meantime, hey, there's lots of work to be done, for somebody else's research program, for a tech's salary (but not a tech's 9-5 hours: most post-docs keep grad student hours and are around much more than 40 h/week!). So what if your spouse has to work in another city doing THEIR post-doc, so what if you can't afford a car? Boy, that Ph.D. sure paid off!
Freedom: "I won't!"
Isn't it cute that Barney the purple dinosaur doubles as "psychological torture" and mimes as "inspires hatred"? It's just so, counter-counter-culture.
But what the hell is depicted in the "physical torture" icon?
And does anyone know if there's a drug with the nickname "William"? The article's author would probably like to know.
In mathematics, one does not understand things, one merely gets used to them.
--VonNeumann
But without prison rape, why would people fear the DMCA?
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
When I was in high school I worked in the Clorox R&D center in Pleasanton, CA. Clorox makes (among other things) bleach, Hidden Valley Ranch (hint: it doesn't start out white) and Fresh Step kitty litter.
I was in AP Chemistry at the time, and I had a friend whose mother worked at Clorox. I volunteered to work there as part of a work study program for credit.
Of course, the only way to test and improve kitty litter is to test it with actual kitty byproducts. Both solid and liquid. I can fondly remember the days of placing stir bars in liters of cat urine to mix them up, then pipette-ing samples to coat the litter.
And, of course, there was only one way to test its effectiveness--lean in and take a hearty whiff. Yes, of kitty poo, as well. The labs' job was to come up with combinations of surfactactants and clays that would, ideally, eliminate the smell altogether, or at least replace it with a pleasant smell. We even had "a professional nose" who would come in and sniff the samples, assigning each sample with descriptions like "kiwi" or "slight fruity scent".
To be quite honest, however, it was pretty fascinating. Not smelling cat feces, of course. But when you think about it, it's one of the few products that must satisfy the sensitivities of two species, including the sense of smell, as well as the cat's sense of touch. It must absorb odor as well as liquid; clump, and surround the kitty waste; and not disintegrate into too mush dust. Oh, and it also has to be biodegradable.
I was sold.
I signed up for a (paid) internship during the summer and made big money. And I always washed my hands before dinner.
In Soviet Russia, cosmonauts dreamed about becoming Slashdotters!
Here is a link with some good information. Prison Rape must suck and I pity most people that have to deal with it
I dont' know, about four hours ago we had a Proff that was telling us about her research into some random gene (nhlh2 or something) and how the Grads got to watch the resulatant mice Knockout and Wild Type mice sit around and either have or not have sex for two hours.
On top of that they were genetically engineering the poor mice to have low energy levels and small genitals, forever making them the fat and unattractive ones (the mice).
It was definitely a "make you sick" job.
John
Not that he's all that bad or anything, I just don't know of any other Jobses in CS (so he would also win the "Best CS Jobs" award).
Notice that it is only the male animals who receive the stimulation.
It's a sexist world out there.
A vet student friend of mine told me that at her university, some tasks are assigned by gender. The girls job is to maturbate the bulls. The guys get to castrate pigs. It's not without a sense of humor..
Alex
Heisenberg may have been here