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Dirtiest Jobs in Science
ExE122 writes "CNN and CareerBuilder have posted a listing of the top 10 dirtiest jobs in science. 'Whether they are sifting through reeking mud banks to find cures for contamination, or sorting stool samples to get to the bottom of our bathroom dilemmas, these are some of the science jobs that sacrifice their time, energy and comfort for the greater global good.' Sounds like a job opportunity for Mike Rowe!" From the article: "Hot-zone Superintendent - What they do: Perform maintenance work for bio-safety labs that study lethal airborne pathogens, for which there is no known cure. Their work enables scientists to study the nature of disease-causing organisms, such as anthrax."
Many of these are not science jobs. And the ones that are, well, the dirty grunt work would be assigned to a technician. Or by grad students.
Mut be a slow news day.
The examples they mention are nothing. You have to gown up to work in the pathogen lab, which is inconvenient and annoying, but otherwise there's nothing to it. Dealing with stool samples, likewise. By the time the pathogist gets it, the sample is in buffer and doesn't even smell. (Well, not much.) No, the dirtiest job I've seen in science is extracting fossils from the tar goo at the La Brea tar pits. The fossil work is in digs below ground level. The tar pits are exactly that. It's not just some cute marketing name. Tar fumes are heavier than air. So the idealistic scientists are down there in what amounts to a huge bucket of tar, getting covered in black goo, and breathing chokingly horrible carcinogenic fumes. That's what I call a dirty job.