• Question: What is the biggest mistake you have ever made in a lab?

    Asked by sesquipedalianist to Chris, Kay, Kerstin, Lorna, Liv on 22 Mar 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Chris Needham

      Chris Needham answered on 22 Mar 2010:

      Being in a computer lab, it’s just writing buggy code. Which can sometimes take ages to find your mistake in.

    • Photo: Lorna Houlihan

      Lorna Houlihan answered on 22 Mar 2010:

      Not writing the names of the samples on the tubes properly! then they washed off and I had no idea which tubes were which and I had to start again – ahhhhh!

    • Photo: Kerstin Zechner

      Kerstin Zechner answered on 22 Mar 2010:

      I once accidentally set a beaker of ethanol on fire. I tried to extinguish the fire by pouring water into the beaker, which wasn’t a good idea as it produced a jet of fire that singed off my eyebrows… not very fun 🙁

    • Photo: Olivia Hibbitt

      Olivia Hibbitt answered on 23 Mar 2010:

      Hey sesquip……

      ummm squirting bacteria in my eye was probably the most disgusting! There was one time when I’d done this HUGE experiment and I was feeling a little woozy from all the pipetting…..and instead of writing down all the information I threw out the things that had what each of the conditions were…..I only realised late the next day, by which time they had been autoclaved and lost forever, I had to repeat the whole thing!!!

    • Photo: Kay Penicud

      Kay Penicud answered on 24 Mar 2010:

      When I was in sixth form my lab partner and I had a miscommunication problem and he accidently set fire to a massive beaker of ethanol rather than heating up water. That was a big whoosh of flames!

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