Tuesday, June 05, 2007

-80 degrees = burns

Having a PhD does not automatically make you smart. I remember I used to tell friends back home this after they pointed out that it was strange that I did this or that. Today I got reminded again. When opening the [vertical] -80 freezer to pull out the racks in metal it is better if you a)don’t press the side of your hand directly towards the metal in order to keep the rack stabile and b)don’t think ‘this will only take a second’ but then realising that the box you want is very close to the back of the freezer. IF one wouldn’t remember this (who could be that stupid?) one could end up with a burn on one’s thumb. But of course, this is just hypothetically speaking. No Doctor would ever forget to put on the BIG gloves when handling the -80stuff. Nahh…..

2 comments:

Black Knight said...

Heh heh. Just like no one would not bother with gloves while getting straws out of liquid nitrogen late at night while prepping for a synchrotron trip, and burn his knuckles. . . .

chall said...

Exactly! Now who would do that? ;)