Words of great wisdom blown back on the reeking wind through a recently shattered lab window ...

[commodorified]

What makes it unusual is not that it blows up - go find me a small hexa-N-nitro compound that doesn't - but that it doesn't actually blow up immediately, early, and often. No, making things that go off when someone down the hall curses at the coffee machine, that's no problem. Making something like this that can actually be handled and stored is a real accomplishment.


In other words, Dr Derek Lowe has updated Things I Won't Work With, and his latest entry really stinks:

Gloves, man, gloves. Unless, of course, you wish to be tattooed with elemental selenium while being nauseated beyond description. Should this be your idea of a fun Saturday night, I will not stand in your way.

ETA: His Things I'm glad I don't do tag is also well worth:

The prep goes on in this vein, through six different columns, one after the other. Now, imagine joining this research group (which was Yasumoto's, in Japan). It's your first day in the lab, and here comes one of the post-docs carrying a couple of blenders in his arms. Behind him, another one is wheeling in the bags of frozen eel guts. It's moray margarita time, and will be for some time to come.

I ... ACTUALLY scared the cat. She'll put up with me pummelling the mattress while I giggle hysterically, but irregular supersonic squeaking she objects to.