• Question: what has been the most dangerous thing you have done in your job and did you enjoy it?

    Asked by bubblesfish to Clare, Dave, Glo, Ozge, Sean on 22 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by petrinabean.
    • Photo: Clare Woulds

      Clare Woulds answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      What felt like the most dangerous was going to the bottom of the Arabian Sea in a submarine. However, they are really careful with safety on those things, so actually the most dangerous was probably driving to meetings in the UK!

    • Photo: Dave Sproson

      Dave Sproson answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Once when on a research aircraft, we descended through a cloud and the plane iced up really badly – so much so that some ice formed in the engines, causing the place to vibrate quite violently. I’ve no idea how dangerous this actually was, but at the time, for a few seconds it was pretty scary. Luckily, we had really great pilots who sorted the problem really quickly!

    • Photo: Gloeta Massie

      Gloeta Massie answered on 22 Jun 2011:

      On my previous research project, I was working with very, very high levels of a parasite that could have done seriously nasty things to my brain if I had somehow ingested large quantities of it. One time, I had around 50,000 of these little suckers in a test tube, and the test tube shattered. Badness. Badness. Badness. THANKFULLY, the explosion was contained and didn’t get into my eyes or mouth. (WHEW!) Lab safety protocols are there for a reason – and boy, did I ever learn that lesson that day! Did I enjoy that? NO! (The dangerous critters I work with – well – I KNOW what they want to do – so it’s a lot easier to work around them safely.)

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