[refurb]

I'm always amazed at the hazardous chemistry that some labs do! They are obviously taking the necessary precautions, but I'm not sure I'd have the guts to do it.

I worked as a chemist for 7 years and witnessed 4 serious accidents, 3 of the 4 due to oxidizing agents (2 of them were peroxides). Some of the folks have scars to this day because of it.

[keithpeter]

Well, at least chemical reactions fall into the "fail early and loudly" category. You know something is wrong.

Radioactivity and virus work strikes me as possibly more dangerous because of the relatively silent nature of the failures.

[cstross]

No, some chemical reactions fail early and loudly.

For absolutely no explosive lulz at all you could try for an exciting career in organic mercury compounds. (But first, I'd recommend checking out the wikipedia entry for Karen Wetterhahn: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Wetterhahn )

Or, did I say "no explosive lulz"? Apparently at one point the USAF considered using dimethyl mercury as a rocket fuel. (Source: buried in "Ignition: an informal history of liquid rocket propellants" by John D. Clarke, which can be found here: http://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf )

[keithpeter]

True Charlie, I should have said most of the time...

The Wetterhahn case was mentioned in the original comment thread (or one of the articles linked from the original post) and was so shocking that permanent changes in regulations and practice occurred.

More mundane and work-a-day 'early failures' here...

http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2012/02/16/when_reagent...

PS: Posting this from near the site of a biological failure that claimed two lives and (I gather) inspired one novel...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Parker

[danieltillett]

Actually this happens in lots of scientific fields - microbiologist and virologists work with dangerous pathogens, physicists with radiation, etc. I think people underestimate how much danger there can be in the lab if you want to do research.