What was your biggest mistake

Question: What was your biggest mistake
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Asked by 662antf23 to Daniela ?, ☣ Danna, Jonny, Juan, Lindsay on 20 Jun 2016.
- Juan Ortiz answered on 20 Jun 2016:
  
  Once I contaminated with a radioactive liquid an expensive piece of equipment. It was very difficult to clean it and we had to keep the device in a special antiradiation container for 2 months until the radiation had disappeared.
- Lindsay Robinson answered on 20 Jun 2016:
  
  No, I’ve never used anything radioactive.
  
  There is a whole branch of chemistry where they label chemicals by putting radioactive atoms into them instead of the non-radioactive ‘normal’ atoms. They often use it in chemistry to figure out how a reaction works.
- Jonathan Hunter answered on 20 Jun 2016:
  
  When I was working in industry, I was repeating the work of someone else – which I had found in a paper. The paper said to add a base (with a really long name). I ordered then used a completely different base (with a similarly long name) thinking it was the right one. Luckily, it worked just as well as the correct one!
  Since then I have always triple checked the labels on chemical before using them!
- Danna Gifford answered on 21 Jun 2016:
  
  I once broke an essential piece of equipment–a device called an autoclave, which sterilizes the tools we use in the lab–because it was slightly different than the ones I I’d used in the fast. Luckily we were able to get it fixed, but I inconvenienced a lot of my colleagues for a few weeks.
- Daniela Lobo answered on 21 Jun 2016:
  
  My virus naturally infects bacteria, and destroys them – I once contaminated my colleague bacteria cultures (all his bacteria died) by mistake!

Question: What was your biggest mistake

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