Among the '10 Worst Jobs in Science' listed 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 monitor 'extremophile' microbes that thrive in the most putrid environments (work that one says resembles being surrounded by 100 'extremely flatulent people').
'Human lab rats' such as students employed in an industry-funded University of California at San Diego study for $15 an hour to have pesticides sprayed into their eyes.
