DailyDirt: Deadly Lab Accidents
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Working in a scientific field can be really difficult sometimes. And sometimes it can even be life-threatening. The multitude of "CSI" TV shows don't generally portray how dangerous a laboratory can be in reality, so here are some sobering links to remind us about the importance of lab safety.- Plague still infects over 2,000 people each year, but usually it doesn't kill people at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, Malcolm Casadaban discovered (the hard way) that European descendants with hemochromatosis are more susceptible to lab strains of live plague bacteria. [url]
- Chemistry professor Karen Wetterhahn's death from mercury poisoning demonstrates that even experts in the field of heavy metals aren't safe from lab mishaps. Wetterhahn was wearing gloves, just not the right kind of gloves... [url]
- Working alone in a machine shop at night is not a good idea. Biology and chemistry labs are not the only dangerous places for students to be. [url]
- To find more stuff on forensic-related topics, check out what's currently in the StumbleUpon archives. [url]
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Mercury poisoning
Sure, mercury can be bad; even dangerous - but the extreme events listed were all due to COMPOUNDS of mercury; so, for example, mercury in vaccines and tooth fillings, while banned now, and rightfully so, are NOT the villains they are assumed
to be by people who should know to "speak when you know something about what you are saying!"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Mercury poisoning
Well... if you're going to get all technical, then vaccines usually contain a compound of mercury, too. Thiomersal isn't the same as dimethylmercury, but it's still a COMPOUND of mercury...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomersal
The mercury in tooth fillings is usually an amalgam with silver, so that's not a compound, but a metal-metal alloy.
But in any case, elemental mercury in the environment can be methylated by bacteria... and that's how mercury ultimately poisons people.
http://www.epa.gov/mercury/exposure.htm#1
[ link to this | view in chronology ]