The Worst Jobs in Science

[Astrocloud]

LINK to Popular Science Article

I would love to cut and paste this in but it is Too Good by itself. For example a little Barney the dinosaur token is used to indicate when a job has "Psychological Torture" a mime token is used for "Inspires Hatred"...

This is too funny. Anyone see a job they want?

[Astrocloud]

Okay, Okay this one has me rolling on the floor. The symbol next to it is the mime... it "inspires hatred".

17. PLANETARY PROTECTION OFFICER

Sounds like a job giving away condoms at high school homecomings—but it's actually much worse. NASA's John Rummel must save the solar system from interplanetary biological contamination, and whether he succeeds or fails, people will hate him for it. Before missions launch to other planets, Rummel enforces a strict regimen of cleanliness to ensure that we don't carry Earth microbes to other solar system bodies—lest we then "discover" strangely familiar life-forms out there. Engineers generally resent having to bake their supersensitive instruments at 111°C (230°F), Rummel says, "so I get to be the heavy." In 10 years, when we return Mars rocks to Earth, he'll be the guy locking the samples in quarantine until he can guarantee they're not crawling with dastardly Martian microbes—essentially an impossible task, given that we have no clue what Mars life might look like. Should the life he can't detect escape and wreak a plague upon humanity, we'll blame him.

[wry1]

Okay, that was one funny article!!!

If you come across anything more like that, please don't hesitate to post it....

Thanks again.

[alkaloid]

Hahaha! Excellent link.

[bundy]

8. PRISON RAPE RESEARCHER

University of South Dakota psychologist Cindy Struckman- Johnson was one of the first to seek anonymous written narrative testimonies from prisoners about the realities of prison life, and she employed a handful of students to help process the returned surveys. What she got stunned them all: One in ten inmates in the survey had been the victim of a sexual assault, many repeatedly. But it wasn't the numbers alone that made the impact, it was the vividness of the accounts and the desperation expressed. To read page after first- person page of sexual torture—"This happens every day. Please, please, can you do something about it"—well, says Struckman- Johnson, "some of my students almost couldn't handle it."

wow, now thats got to be a nasty job.
i think this one, and the DYSENTERY STOOL-SAMPLE ANALYZER would be the worst jobs around.

[Astrocloud]

Under Astronaut, again had me rolling on the floor:

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. A day later,
at the other end of the craft, commander Bob Overmeyer was
accosted by a truant turd.

[MacGnG]

im glad my major (biochem) isnt on there

[AP1]

ha ha pretty funny. thanks. i thought it was pretty cool that they took the time to match icons up w/ the different shitty jobs.

[preluder]

prison rape researcher would be pretty bad if you were running the experiments yourself...

[numist_net]

my friend was a mosquito researcher over the summer.. got to be bitten by skeeters all summer.

That should be on the list.

[numist_net]

nevermind, her job is there...

BRAZIL MOSQUITO RESEARCHER

I sit corrected...