Worst Jobs in Science: Year Three

mmoyer writes "Popular Science just published their annual rankings of the worst jobs in science. Highlights of this year's list include a human lab rat, orangutan pee collector, and, surprisingly, a NASA ballerina. Think your science job belongs on the list? You can nominate your job as well. Slashdot also covered the worst jobs in science in 2004 and in 2003."

Comments

Re:Question for biologists...

[operagost]

The simple light-sensitive spot on the skin of some ancestral creature gave it some tiny survival advantage, perhaps allowing it to evade a predator

Only if the predator has a FRICKIN LASER BEAM on its head! Being as most creatures don't come with light-emitting organs as standard equipment, this speculation falls short of an explanation. Maybe there were large populations of electroluminescent bacteria a hojillion years ago.

Random changes then created a depression in the light-sensitive patch, a deepening pit that made "vision" a little sharper.

No, just narrower. A disadvantage, like tunnel vision.

At the same time, the pit's opening gradually narrowed, so light entered through a small aperture, like a pinhole camera.

Again, the creature's eye become LESS useful until it reaches a point where the aperture narrowed enough to focus the light onto the "retina", instead of in front of or behind it.

In fact, eyes corresponding to every stage in this sequence have been found in existing living species.

If so, I'd like an example-- because I've never heard of a creature with a deep, light-sensitive pit in its body.