holy darwin

Science is awesome. Science is amazing. Science is also very DANGEROUS!

This blog series is freaking awesome. It makes my mad scientist heart go pitter-pat.

http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/things_i_wont_work_with/

Some highlights:

• "The question is whether you're going to be able to get a long enough look at the material before it realizes its dream of turning into an expanding cloud of hot nitrogen gas."
• "Hexanitro? Say what? I'd call for all the chemists who've ever worked with a hexanitro compound to raise their hands, but that might be assuming too much about the limb-to-chemist ratio."
• "The date does make me wonder if there was war research money involved; I wouldn't be surprised. But chlorine azide has not been weaponized, nor will it be. It remains, with its chemical relatives, off in a part of chemical science that's safe from human exploitation. It's a spacious game preserve, that territory, and over the gate is the ornate motto Noli me tangere. Take heed.

And it just keeps going and being utterly giggle-worthy, especially if you spent a great deal of time in chemistry labs. It's awesome and makes me vaguely nostalgic for college.