Things I Won't Work With

Man, the number of times I've been asked a variation on 'what's the most deadly [whatever]' over my twenty years of teaching has to be incalculable.

I, honestly, have absolutely know idea what the worst acid is (hydrofluoric scares the pee out of me, admittedly). I don't know what chemical I have that's the most flammable (maybe methanol). I don't care which chemical is the most deadly in my stockroom.

I do know, however, that anything that scares a professional scientist - especially one with the respected pedigree of Derek Lowe - scares me.

But I do like reading about dangerous stuff, so I'm glad that Dr Lowe's In the Pipeline blog (now on Science magazine's site) has a tag called "Things I Won't Work With."

I particularly recommend his articles on peroxide peroxides ("Colloquially, I would imagine that the compound is known as “Oh, @#&!”, substituted with the most heartfelt word available when you realize that you’ve actually made the stuff") and azidoazide azides ("Never forget, the biggest accomplishment in such work is not blowing out the lab windows.").

Honestly, though, all of the posts are enlightening and hilarious.