Submitted by admin on Thu, 2005-11-24 09:00. ::
Among the "10 Worst Jobs in Science" in Popular Science's annual November listing: Harvard researchers in Borneo who catch orangutan urine (in plastic sheets, the way firefighters catch jumpers) for studying reproduction-hormone levels; gear-packing monitors who run toward, not away from, the gases and molten rock of erupting volcanoes (dozens have been killed or wounded); U.S. Geological Survey workers at two picturesque California lakes monitoring "extremophile" microbes that thrive in the most putrid environments (work that one says resembles being surrounded by 100 "extremely flatulent people"); and "human lab rats" such as students employed in an industry-financed University of California at San Diego study for $15 an hour to have pesticides sprayed into their eyes.
• Cutting-Edge Products: (1) In September, China's Guangzhou Haojian Bio-science Co. introduced new condoms whose names read phonetically as the "kelintun" and the "laiwensiji," which of course resemble the names of a former U.S. president and his acquaintance. (2) Women's Wear Daily reported in October that rock star Marilyn Manson said he was finalizing a personal perfume deal with a "major" company, as a precursor to his own full cosmetics line.
• Parents of McGovern Elementary School students in Medway, Mass., complained to the Boston Herald in October because Paul Trufant's septic-sewage service, across from the school, boasts the identifying slogan on all its trucks: "S- Happens." Trufant said he would advertise however he wants to: "This is America, not Iraq."
• Those Versatile Goats: (1) David Valentine, 12, often bounces on a trampoline with his pet goats, D.J. and Blessing, but officials in Miami Township, Ohio, threatened to crack down because goats are not permitted within the town limits. David's parents say the goats are necessary to help with David's Attention Deficit Disorder. (2) The economy of the section of Morocco around Tiout is dependent on a renowned cooking oil made from nuts of the argan tree, but only nuts that have been eaten and excreted by goats, which actually climb into the trees and stand on branches to eat the nut-bearing fruit. According to an October New York Times dispatch, locals are trying to shift gradually from predigested nuts without spoiling the oil's taste.
• Erica Salmon, originally a fantasy-football-league "widow" because of her husband's seasonal mania, has now become mogul of her own fantasy league: of famous fashion designers. According to an October report by the Des Moines Register, managers draft teams consisting of three clothing designers, plus one each of designer of shoes, handbags, jewelry and celebrity clothing, and then three celebrities, and they get points daily for the number and quality of name-mentions in Women's Wear Daily and other fashion and style magazines. As with football leagues, trades are permitted once a week.
• More Signs: Judge Norene Redmond, facing the necessity to release prisoners from overcrowded Macomb County (Mich.) Jail, asked the public, by way of an October online poll, which types should be freed first; drug-possession and DUI defendants were deemed the most worthy, but Redmond said the final decision was hers.
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