I wanna be a labcoat ranger, I wanna live a life of danger

[soylentgreen]

While poking around for info on an unrelated topic, I stumbled across the website for one Steve Quayle. Lousy with pseudo-science and rife with "facts" of extreme dubiety(God, I love that word!), the site did have one quite interesting department. In a section for obituaries from the science community(which the site tastefully titles "List of Dead Scientists"!), passings are ticked off in reverse chronology starting with the most recent.

However(!), the most intriguing part of all is the fact that after going through the list, I was forced to conclude that my own estimates of the grave physical danger one runs in the lab-coat demographic were grossly underestimated. The percentage of scientists bopped over the head with champagne bottles, shot en-route to the lab, found at the bottom of water treatment plants(note: That happend 20 miles from me! Poor woman.) or just plain 86ed is staggering. Of course, the number of plane-crash related is also alot higher than I expected. Not to mention the number of mishaps (accidental ebola-dosing ) or tragic suicides.

As most here seem quite adept at internet-orienteering and the protocol for linking on this forum was clearly constructed by Rube Goldberg , I'll just suggest looking up the site by Steve's name.

I recommend checking it out(avoid the garbage of the other 99% of the site)as it's an odd and very often heartbreaking glimpse into the lives of some of the people who, unlike the Brad Pitts and Sean Penns of the world, are out there actually trying to help for the betterment* of us all.



* Though I must add that the very first obit I spotted, which included the sentence "Investigators are looking for a connection between the murder of this leading bio weapons researcher and the hepatitis outbreak in Tver, Russia." sounds like the first chapter in a Tom Clancy thriller...or worse, THE STAND!

apologies to brave recon rangers everywhere.

[Dave Mitsky]

Are all the world's problems caused by Hollywood movie stars, I wonder?

Dave Mitsky

[teri tait]

I blame the screenplayers...

[sarongsong]

...As most here seem quite adept at internet-orienteering and the protocol for linking on this forum was clearly constructed by Rube Goldberg , I'll just suggest looking up the site by Steve's name...

Dead Scientists (left column)
Hey, it's only 78 and counting...

[Gullible Jones]

You sure the guy isn't making some of them up?

(AFAIK, there haven't been any incidents involving death by accidental dosing with Ebola. There were a few close calls, and I think something like that happened two or three times with Lassa, but never with a filovirus thank goodness.)

[ngc3314]

Only a single astrobiologist in the bunch. But if you want to look at astronomical endings... How about Dave Schramm, who was piloting his twin-engine plane when it went down in snowy weather in Colorado? Or Gene Shoemaker, killed in a car accident while surveying impact craters in the Australian outback? Marc Aaronson, crushed in a different kind of freak accident at Kitt Peak than the 4-meter dome had made me fear? Geoffrey Willick, killed when a car crashed into the internet cafe he was visiting while gone east on vacation? My collaborator Mike Ledlow, who complained of a headache at a meeting and was dead 36 hours later of a hitherto asymptomatic brain tumor? Karl Henize and Jean-Luc Prieto, kiled while mountain-climbing on different continents? Bicycling did in Bill Burke, and came pretty close for three more of my colleagues.

They were more drawn-out, but I could add Charlene Heisler, Richard Elston, Rebecca Elson, and Beatrice Tinsley gone well before their times.

[Monique]

Is more dangerous being mathematician. More mathematicians dead then currently alive.

[Halcyon Dayz]

That's a mathematician's joke.

[LurchGS]

... and all the children are above normal.