Lab Tales - Part 1

The first few weeks of Master's program, the issue of safety came up a few times. In fact I was forced to go to a safety seminar! In one way, I hate safety seminars, because they're absolutlely pointless. They spend 3 hours telling you, "Be careful! Especially when you're tired!" The video's themselves are just plain hilarious. You get to see a montage of cartoon-like accidents happening in the lab. The directing is to thank. One scene in particular where you see some clown wearing shorts, sandals and a lab coat comes to mind. The camera starts at his exposed toes and then moves up to the fool handling some large unwieldy glass pane. He drops it and all you hear is shattering glass, leaving your imagination to conjure images of jagged shards severing his toes. Then you get quick shots of people accidently stabbing themselves with needles, spilling acid etc... I felt bad, but after a while I couldn't hold it in and exploded into laughter.

My supervisor, as always, had some hilarious stories (which he probably didn't intend to be hilarious) of people getting hurt in labs he worked at back in Europe. One time he walked into the lab, and as he openned the door to say hello, a heavy metal stand fell on some girls neck. Or another time, a brilliant scientist he knew, put something he shouldn't have in an autoclave(a machine that sterilizes things at very high pressure and temperature). A huge explosion ensued and everyone just turned to look at the man who was using it. He continued smoking his cigar as if nothing hapenned. "What???"

But the most unlikely story he told, was about a centrifuge (see last post). As everyone knows, RULE #1 of centrifuges is they have to be balanced carefully or they could concievably send your sample flying out of the machine and through your head!!! For this story, my supervisor became very serious. He said that one time, the samples were loaded into the machine unevenly such that when it turned on, the rotor actually rose out of the centrifuge and began spinning out of control across the floor like some deadly top. The way he described it, he and two other guys he knew were running away from this crazy thing as it left a wake of devastation in the centrifuge room. I imagined them in one of those long hallways with dozens of doors on either side



and the rotor spinning after them.

I did learn one important thing though. This SDS stuff that I've been using without a mask for the past two years, should ALWAYS be used with a mask. Sorry lungs! Another fun factoid... The way bottles are labelled in our lab, anyone could come in and drink toxic stuff, feign ignorance and sue the pants off of whoever is responsible for their violent illness!!!

"What's chloroform? " guzzle guzzle guzzle

I wouldn't recommend trying it though.... that means you Vrej!

P.S.
Here's a sad story... I've been sitting in the lab alone typing this post for so long, that the lights just turned off because they weren't detecting any movement. That's sad and scary. Happy Thanksgiving to me... :-(