Not water = Acetone

[Thuringwethyl]

Oy.

[Kirkygirl]

Playing with Chemicals (and fire)

Thankfully, I've never had this happen to me. The instructor at my college was very adamant about no food or drinks in any of the science labs that we had classes in. For example kiddos, you might have been playing with 1.0 Molar hydrochloric acid. Which, in plain English, means that the stomach acid is about the same strength as the Hulk vs. Titanium. Poof. Bye bye. So when you go and have a drink from your water bottle, without washing your hands, you very well may have endangered your life. Scary thought, eh?

[Imogene]

"Not Water" leaves about 18000 other clear liquids it could be.

Man, I read that and my first thought was a very particular death in a Space Quest game, and I had to go find it, cause it just made me insane to not remember which game it was from. All I could remember was Riger walking past a pool of green, and dipping his hand into it, only to have it burn away, and the Two Guys From Andromeda show up to do a play-by-play of where you went wrong.
http://tmd.alienharmony.com/rw/sq1vga/4/d.htm

[PossJB]

Doubleplusungood.

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that read the grammar primer in 1984.

[poofy_puff]

Thankfully, I've never had this happen to me. The instructor at my college was very adamant about no food or drinks in any of the science labs that we had classes in. For example kiddos, you might have been playing with 1.0 Molar hydrochloric acid. Which, in plain English, means that the stomach acid is about the same strength as the Hulk vs. Titanium. Poof. Bye bye. So when you go and have a drink from your water bottle, without washing your hands, you very well may have endangered your life. Scary thought, eh?

Stomach acid is not actually 1.0M, it has a pH of approximately 1. But yeah, you wouldn't want to swallow 1 molar acid.

When I was in college, we weren't allowed to even chew gum in lab. Here, we pay lip-service to that philosophy but enforcement is discretionary. If *I* were in charge, I'd have a zero-tolerance policy for all safety protocol. Unfortunately, I do not have instructional responsibilities (the problem is really the teaching fellows, not the students; students are here to LEARN, so they need to be TOLD) and I am not even here when most of the classes take place. I have been told by one of the head instructors that they WANT me to yell at people, including TF's, and I have a very loud regular speaking voice so when I RAISE my voice it's like normal people speaking through a PA system.

I am constantly looking the other way because I don't WANT to see bare feet (anything that leaves part of the feet exposed to me is "bare feet"), safety glasses on foreheads, shorts, skimpy tops... NONE of this would have made it in MY college classes (which btw was UMass - Lowell).

Well, next week we're doing the Redox Lab, with Vanadium, Potassium Permanganate, and 3M Sulfuric Acid. This will be the last lab of the semester with chemicals. After that, they have one more lab but it's only playing with the plastic molecular models.

[Nyoibo]

Someone gonna die.

[Dark-Star]

Man, I read that and my first thought was a very particular death in a Space Quest game, and I had to go find it, cause it just made me insane to not remember which game it was from. All I could remember was Riger walking past a pool of green, and dipping his hand into it, only to have it burn away, and the Two Guys From Andromeda show up to do a play-by-play of where you went wrong.
http://tmd.alienharmony.com/rw/sq1vga/4/d.htm

Another SQ fan! Joy! *cues SQ1 theme song* http://www.queststudios.com/gsmidi/sq1gs1.zip

In all seriousness that is an epically bad way to label liquids in a chemistry setting.

[Kirkygirl]

I am constantly looking the other way because I don't WANT to see bare feet (anything that leaves part of the feet exposed to me is "bare feet"), safety glasses on foreheads, shorts, skimpy tops... NONE of this would have made it in MY college classes (which btw was UMass - Lowell).

Well, next week we're doing the Redox Lab, with Vanadium, Potassium Permanganate, and 3M Sulfuric Acid. This will be the last lab of the semester with chemicals. After that, they have one more lab but it's only playing with the plastic molecular models.

Yep, my instructor gave my class a damn hard time about that too. Before any chemical was poured, everyone had to have their goggles on, no skimpy tops, no crack showing (my high school teacher always encouraged us to say no to crack! ), and no skin on the feet visble.

As for all the lovely chemicals? Oh dear. But then again, my mom gets to play with osmium and xylene. Lovely stuff, osmium and blind you.

I'm surprised they let all those dumb kids in your class poofy_puff.

[PepperElf]

dang.

it's one thing to put some GP (general purpose cleaner) in a spray bottle ... but... Acetone?

If someone had done that where I worked, they'd be in all sorts of issues. Hell, we had a hazmat department just for handling chemicals. couldn't even get a freakin cup of paint without having a hazmat label printed up for it.


that's just stupid on soooo many levels.

[Greenday]

Stomach acid is not actually 1.0M, it has a pH of approximately 1. But yeah, you wouldn't want to swallow 1 molar acid.

Probably has to do with buffers, complex acids, polyprotic acids...Ok, I'm getting into that one too much.

Greenday, and anyone else who works in a lab, will know what is wrong with this

Oh crap, the one time I'm referenced to in a post and it's chemistry. *gets out the rope and looks for a high place...*

That's pretty disturbing. At least that's one thing knocked off the list. The other week I walked into the main lab for my forensics lab after finishing stuff in a different room. There were a bunch of beakers unlabeled. And with the labs we were doing, it could have been anything from water to concentrated sulfuric acid. Maybe some decent strength hydrochloric acid. Awesome...

[Imogene]

Another SQ fan! Joy!

Well, really, it's a love for old Adventure games, and Sierra's team for the Quest games were absolutely stunning and really damn witty... But SQ is still really fun, the premise be damned...
Really? A Janitor... in space?

[Primer]

That's pretty disturbing. At least that's one thing knocked off the list. The other week I walked into the main lab for my forensics lab after finishing stuff in a different room. There were a bunch of beakers unlabeled. And with the labs we were doing, it could have been anything from water to concentrated sulfuric acid. Maybe some decent strength hydrochloric acid. Awesome...

...just add a little water...

no, I'm really NOT quite that stupid!

[poofy_puff]

*I* have YEARS of experience which keeps ME safe!

[Difdi]

I smelled it and it was acetone.

That's a bit risky. I can think of a few clear liquids that you really don't want to breathe the fumes off of, and I'm sure you can too (ranging from the merely unpleasant to the nearly-instantly lethal).

[Cia]

Well if it isn't water it must be........vodka! Now where did I put the lemon sour? Oh yeah, it's in a bottle labeled 'Not window cleaner'.