Laboratory Safety

I looked into it after thinking the same thing. It looks like in 1997 a researcher accidentally got a couple drops of dimethyl Mercury on her latex gloves. Unfortunately for her, latex does not provide sufficient protection as the Mercury can break through quite easily. Looks like specific types of nitrile or rubber gloves are required.

most dangerous thing i work with on a daily basis is high proof ethanol and razor blades. occasionally i have to use phenol or chloroform or acrylamide. worst thing i ever worked with though was EMS, a volatile mutagen i needed for a genetic screen.

we do have some nastier stuff in the chem room though, like cell trafficking inhibitors and cytoskeleton disruptors and whatnot.

>cellular irritants
>not working with cyanide or high vapor pressure volatile halogens

I'll get some pics tomorrow. The jar is soaking in a bucket of water at the lab right now so it can be handled safely.

Biggest risk in most labs is asphyxiation from nitrogen or carbon dioxide.
Second biggest risk is anything to do with pressure.

That's what has killed people in my company in the last ten years.

Oddball things include massive vasodilation from a biologic. Picomolar inhalation risk. People fainting at random was weird.

woah, vasodilation from picomolar concentrations of an airborne substance? what's the substance?

I can't give details because of commercial sensitivity, the stuff is now on the market and very effective at what it is supposed to do.

I suggest reading Ignition! It has multiple stories of interesting new properties of compounds being discovered via turning a lab's atmosphere/factory floor into pulverized glass/Pit o' chlorine trifluoride.

I'm taking a look for it, but can't find it. Do you have an exact title?