FEATURE/Popular Science Names the Worst Jobs in Science in Its October Issue; Something Catchy Here.

Feature Editors/Business Editors/Science Writers

FEATURE...

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 15, 2003

Science is ennobling, fascinating and challenging. Yet, there are aspects of science--entire jobs, even--that, when stripped away of their imposing titles and advanced degrees, sound at best distasteful and at worst unbearable. Popular Science searched far and wide in its October issue (on sale September 16) to salute the worst jobs in science. Let's just say your job isn't so bad after all!

"Science is full of inquisitive people who take great pleasure in doing jobs that others would not touch with a 10-foot pole--and the world is indisputably a better place for their efforts," said Scott Mowbray, Editor-in-Chief. "We're grateful that someone out there is doing these jobs. Even if they aren't appealing to the outside world, many are integral to advancing scientific research. But they're also gross and fun and fascinating to talk about."

The 2003 Worst Jobs in Science according to the editors of Popular Science are:

1. Flatus Odor Judge: Odor judges are common in the research labs of mouthwash companies. But a Minneapolis gastroenterologist recently took the job to another level when he paid two brave souls to indulge repeatedly in the odors of other people's flatulence. The smell of flatulence is a potentially critical medical symptom that could important markers of gastrointestinal health.

2. Dysentery Stool-Sample Analyzer: These technicians open stool canisters and analyzing their contents in order to test the effectiveness of a stool-analyzation kit company.

3. Barnyard Masturbator: Researchers who want animal sperm --to study fertility or for artificial insemination--must collect the sperm. They have several options including electroejaculation, an artificial vagina and manual stimulation.

4. Brazil Mosquito Researcher: Scientists fighting malaria must study the biting habits of the mosquito that spreads it. In Brazil, the Anopheles darlingi, doesn't respond to the light or wind traps researchers use in Africa. Scientists must offer themselves as bait.

5. Hot-Zone Superintendent: The superintendent for a Bio-Safety Level 4 (BSL4) laboratory, labs that study lethal airborne pathogens for which there is no known cure, must regularly enter the lab regularly to fix equipment, clean, change the pathogen-saturated air filters and ensure the lab is airtight. No one in the world comes more constantly in touch with the Earth's deadliest microbes.

6. Isolation Chamber Tester: At NASA, engineers responsible for life-support systems sign up to spend a few months in cramped captivity to test their equipment. Most isolation-chamber subjects are would-be astronauts who undergo the torture to buff up their resumes--yet none of NASA's recent chamber testers has made the astronaut corps.

7. Fistula Feeder: Veterinarians, studying how bovine innards work, install a hole, called a fistula, into a cow's rumen, the 30-gallon forestomach, where microbes ferment grass. Such rumen fistulae are used for a wide range of bovine digestive research, from testing new feed additives to discovering the roles various enzymes perform in digestion.

8. Prison Rape Researcher: These researchers study the realities of prison life. Duties include reading anonymous narrative testimonies detailing sexual assault.

9. Carcass Cleaner: Natural history museums display clean white skeletons or neatly stuffed animals, but what their field biologists drag in are carcasses flush with rotting flesh. Each museum taxidermist must get rid of the flesh using a wide variety of techniques.

10. PostDoc: The "postdoc" year, the limbo between earning PhD and getting a real job, has grown to a more typical two to three years. Many would-be scientists aren't lasting through the drudgery to compete in an ever-shrinking job pool.

11. Metric System Advocate: The Metric Program of the National Institute of Standards and Technology employs just two people to attempt to convert the American public to the metric system.

12. Corpse-Flower grower: The grower tends a phallic flower that is taller than a man or woman and gives off an overwhelming scent of rotting flesh, a pungency it evolved to attract Sumatran carrion beetles.

13. Endangered Species Ecologist: Scientists labor virtuously in the face of impossible odds to attempt to save and breed species that are dying out.

14. Astronaut: One of the sexiest jobs in science is in fact one of the worst and not just because of the risk of death. Astronauts are subjected to the most arduous of tasks: sitting in high-G centrifuges so that doctors can study motion sickness, deliberately enduring hypothermia for hours on end, wearing rectal probes and central IV lines in all forms of stress training.

15. Fish Counter: Mostly retirees, fish counters sit for 8-hour shifts, April to October, watching fish swim up fish ladders built on large dams in the Pacific Northwest. When a counter spies a fish, she pushes a button to record its passage.

16. U.S. Stem Cell Researcher: Since the ability to study actual stem cells was hobbled by federal regulation in 2001 by President Bush's administration, U.S. Stem Cell Researchers are limited to studying what's already out there while their counterparts across the world are actually allowed to create their own embryonic stem cell lines.

17. Planetary Protection Officer: This person is charged with saving the solar system from interplanetary biological contamination. Before missions launch to other planets, a strict regimen of cleanliness must be enforced to ensure that Earth's microbes aren't carried to other solar system bodies.

18. Fusion researcher: Future generations will need fusion. Yet fusion is meaningless as a power source until the reaction of combining atomic nuclei produces more energy than scientists put in to get it going. Many scientists wonder if the critical point, called "breakeven," will ever be achieved.

Popular Science(R) is published by Time4 Media(R), the world's leading publisher of leisure-time magazines. Founded in 1872, PopSci is the world's largest science and technology magazine with a circulation of 1.45 million subscribers and a readership of more than seven million people. Time4 Media is a subsidiary of Time Inc., which is a wholly owned subsidiary of AOL Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: AOL).