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by keithpeter 4265 days ago
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.
1 comments
cstross 4265 days ago
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 )

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keithpeter 4265 days ago
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

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