Ah science! Ennobling. Fascinating. Deeply challenging. Also, dangerous, gross and mind-bogglingly boring. We at POPULAR SCIENCE are sometimes brought up short by the realization that there are aspects of science―entire jobs, even―that, when you: strip away the imposing titles and advanced degrees, sound at best distasteful and at worst unbearable. Having chosen last month our second annual Brilliant 10―a group of dynamic researchers making remarkable discoveries―we turned to this pressing question: For the rest out there, just how bad can a science job get? The answer: Really, really bad. We solicited nominations from more than a thousand working scientists and culled the list for the most noxious. Then we voted. Which is to say, there is absolutely nothing scientific about the ranking of the worst jobs in science that appears on these pages; it is simply the collective opinion of a group of alternately awestruck and disturbed editors who rarely suffer anything worse on the job than keyboard-induced repetitive-motion syndrome.
展开▼
