The 10 Worst Jobs in Science

So you thought your job was underpaid, unappreciated and generally tedious? Well think again. http://www.popsci.com/ last month released its 3rd annual roll of honour of the Worst Jobs in Science (by John Galvin).

You're a what??

Imagine explaining it in the pub "So what do you do for a living?" "Well, actually, I'm an Orangutan Pee Collector...." Just what exactly do you say to that?

But there really is such a job, and if you took the bull by the horns and applied for it, you might find yourself trekking into the Gunung Palung National Park in Borneo, Indonesia, searching for likely groups of the endangered primates. Once spotted, techniques involve suspending plastic sheets between the trees, and, er, waiting for nature to take its course. Or for greater precision, you can follow the animals around with a bag on a pole... (niiice)

The animals, which are vulnerable to extinction, only reproduce about once every eight years, so DNA extracted from the urine can be used to analyse fertility, weight gain and loss, and stress levels, all of which can be used to help understand the reproduction patterns of great apes.

Oddly enough, this job only came in at number 10 on the list.

My grandfather wasn't a monkey!

You wouldn't think the job of a teacher in Kansas would be that bad, would you? Apparently, if you're a biology teacher, it can be harder than you think.

In 1999, a group of religious fundamentalists won election to the Kansas State Board of Education and tried to introduce creationism into the state's classrooms. More temperate forces prevailed in subsequent elections, but anti-evolutionists gained the majority again last November, promoting the theory of Intelligent Design (ID).

ID is the idea that complex elements of the natural world - the human eye, say - cannot be explained by evolutionary theory and therefore must be the work of an intelligent designer - that is, God.

"The evolution debate is consuming almost everything we do," says Brad Williamson, a 30-year science veteran at suburban Olathe East High School and a past president of the National Association of Biology Teachers. "It's politicized the classroom. Parents will say their child can't be in class during any discussion of evolution, and students will say things like 'My grandfather wasn't a monkey!'"

This job came in at number 3. Don't apply to become a biology teacher in Kansas unless you know what you're letting yourself in for!

Hmmm, maybe my job's not really that bad after all. Time to go and get a coffee from the machine and check the football scores online I think...

Read the whole article, and find out what the other 8 jobs are, at Popular Science.