shadowspar

If you're at all a science geek -- and quite possibly even if you're not -- this thread about lab mishaps is both profoundly amusing and profoundly edifying.

Couple highlights:

• This incident, my friends, is why we never handle compressed gas cylinders with anything but the utmost respect. I'm more than a little shocked (and frightened) by how casually some paintball players treat their tanks -- throwing them around, filling HPA too quickly, and so on. A tank accident is Bad Fucking Scene.
• When you store radioactive materials, you might want to make sure that you shield them on all the sides.
• The simplest of careless mistakes can lead to the utmost consequences: five hundred thousand quid worth of computing equipment dashed to pieces, all because one crane cable wasn't secure.
• The simplest of careless mistakes, #2: years worth of work and untold numbers of irreplaceable microorganisms destroyed in an instant when somebody sterilized the wrong cell-storage tank.
• Finally, when you get down on yourself about ruining a recipe or busting something at work, you can take some solace in the fact that you're not the guy who washed $650,000 worth of gold down the drain.

(Found via Maciej.)