• Question: have you ever done something very bad like destoy any inportant equipment?

    Asked by matthewhill to Nathan, Allan, Angela, Diva, Harriet on 26 Jun 2012. This question was also asked by jordan2012, kenneth98.
    • Photo: Allan Pang

      Allan Pang answered on 26 Jun 2012:

      Accidents happen in the lab.

      I broke a few glass wares and stuff in the lab, but nothing really major that causes a lot of money. 🙂

    • Photo: Nathan Langford

      Nathan Langford answered on 26 Jun 2012:

      Well… fortunately, I’ve done nothing that was *very* bad… but I did once touch the wrong piece of equipment in someone’s experiment and they had to realign it – that was pretty embarrassing… *sigh*

    • Photo: Angela Lamb

      Angela Lamb answered on 26 Jun 2012:

      The mass spectrometers in our labs are very expensive but fortunately I haven’t manage to break one yet, although in my first week as a PhD student I broke one of our glass vacuum lines and we had to wait weeks for the glass blower to repair it.

    • Photo: Diva Amon

      Diva Amon answered on 27 Jun 2012:

      Hey guys,
      I’ve only had a major accident once. Before I tell the story, I just want to emphasise that I am a good scientist and things like this dont USUALLY happen to me! Hahaha

      I was in the molecular lab preparing whale bone samples. To do this I needed to put chloroform into the tubes with the bone bits. In case you dont know, chloroform is toxic to humans – it can knock out a person if too much is breathed in and can also damage your nervous system, kidneys and liver and even maybe cause cancer. Chloroform is used in a lot of movies by thieves and other ‘bad guys’ who pour it onto handkerchiefs before putting it over their victims nose and mouth so they pass out.

      Anyway, I was carrying the chloroform which comes in a huge bottle, back to the cupboard when I stumbled and it crashed onto the floor. The bottle broke and chloroform went everywhere. I immediately jumped up and ran out of the lab as I didn’t want to pass out! I had to alert everyone in the immediate labs and we all had to be evacuated until people with safety masks had cleaned up all the chloroform. Thankfully no one was hurt and it wasn’t an expensive mistake but it was EXTREMELY embarrassing!

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