Science is a noble thing. It has bestowed upon suffering humanity such wondrous gifts as the automobile, the airplane, birth control pills, Viagra, Cheez Whiz, the electric guitar, the electric chair, the atom bomb and other marvels of modern life. Science also provides many wonderful career opportunities. But not all jobs in science are glamourous or fun or even vaguely palatable, as Popular Science magazine reveals in a delightful story titled ‘‘The Worst, Most Torturous, Icky, Painful, Stinky, Dangerous, and Just Plain Horrible Jobs in Science’’. ‘‘Just how bad can a science job get?’’ asks the author, William Speed Weed, perhaps the only writer in US whose name pays homage to not one but two illicit drugs. His answer: ‘‘Really, really bad.’’ The job of researching a Brazilian mosquito spreading malaria is, for example, important work, noble work, and, if truth be told, wretched work. Researcher Helge Zieler’s job is to sit in a boggy, buggy area with his leg exposed, waiting for a mosquito to land. When it does, he sucks it into a mouth tube, then blows it into a container for study. He does this for three hours, twice a week. He collects as many as 500 mosquitoes per session. He also collects about 3,000 mosquito bites per session — as well as a case of malaria that took him two years to shake off. That’s a rough job, but perhaps no rougher than the other 17 jobs Speed Weed documents. There’s the ‘‘carcass cleanser’’ who scours the rancid flesh off dead animals to prepare their skeletons for display in classrooms or museums. And the ‘‘fistula feeder’’, a veterinary researcher who reaches into the fistula, a manmade plugged hole in a cow’s fore-stomach, to check out bovine digestive functions. And the ‘‘barnyard masturbator’’, who gathers sperm samples from bulls or pigs, a job that should be reserved only for a true animal lover. The number one worst job on Speed Weed’s list is the ‘‘flatus odour judge’’, who toils in a Minnesota scientist’s study of human flatulence by . well, if you want to know the exact methodology of this experiment, which involved the inevitable results of 16 healthy humans eating pinto beans, you’re just going to have to buy Popular Science because it’s way too gross for a family newspaper. But, kids, don’t let this article scare you away from science. It’s a great field and a terrific way to serve humanity. And if you happen to get a job that’s truly awful, e-mail Popular Science. They’re planning a sequel. (LAT-WP)
