Pain, Tedium, Danger, Disgust, Humiliation—It’s all just part of the average workday for the (often proud, more often smelly) members of our third annual honor roll of the Worst Jobs in Science — from Popular Science.
10. Orangutan-Pee Collector
Their work is noninvasive—for the apes, that is . . .
9. NASA Ballerina
Her dance partner is a supersensitive Robot
8. Do-Gooder
Bugs, bears, and a melting earth—you call this a vacation?
7. Semen Washer
It’s a job that separates the boys from the men
6. Volcanologist
When the earth heats up, they head in
5. Nuclear-Weapons Scientist
They’ve mastered fusion. Next up: Filing
4. Extremophile Excavator
Never has success smelled less sweet
3. Kansas Biology Teacher
On the front lines of science’s devolution
2. Manure Inspector
The smell is just the start of the nastiness
1. Human Lab Rat
Warning: Pesticides are bad for you
I have a buddy on this list. It doesn’t make him happy.
Thanks Khalil
Hey John, just happily switched to WordPress…
Question: what is a “semen washer”?
Maybe I don’t want to know…
I know a vulcanologist, and I know people that work at Los Alamos. THe vulcanologist I know studies lava long after it’s been deposited (and is cold of course), and stays away from live volcanoes. The Los Alamos people are having a worse time of it these days.
About the NASA ballerina.
Why did they have to make the robot look like a giant penis… or is that part of the symbolism of the performance?… the woman persues the object of her desire, only to see it move away repeatedly, rejecting her and her loving caresses… hence the look of dejection in her dance. See, it is art! Arggghhhhh…
geez…and I always though the guy responsible for getting the semen from male turkeys (for Foster Farms) was a bad job.
They forgot “white house chubby female intern wearing black dress.”
This American Life had a great “insider” piece on being a human lab rat.
http://www.thislife.org/pages/descriptions/97/62.html
>> Ira interviews Bob Helms, creator of the zine Guinea Pig Zero, which is about people who make their living by donating their bodies to science for medical experiments. Bob says he wouldn’t do spinal tap studies of psychoactive drugs (he calls the people who do the latter “brain sluts”). Overall, he says, it’s a much better job than most 9-to-5’s
You need Real Audio to hear it.