Cute? Cute?!
A BSc, MSc and PhD and THAT’S your reaction?! Cute?!
Sir, that is a scientist!
Respect the coat! The soft, fluffy coat!
TIL animals may be allowed in chemistry labs. But then again, still remember my professor’s being very clear that mouth pipetting is bad idea, to then show us how to do it just in case.
I ate cancer cells of a person who died 40 years before me trying mouth pipetting
That sounds HeLa awkward.
I had a classmate that managed to dump nitric acid all over themselves doing that. Luckily it wasn’t strong enough to not be funny.
I will say this is not enough PPE for a dog, especially if you’re doing acid titrations or something, I can’t imagine HCL is easy to get out of fur but it might give the dog a while before skin contact
I would imagine that there isn’t anything hazardous to that degree. I studied biochemistry, and I can think of a lot of different research areas that would include minimally hazardous materials (e.g. phosphate buffer)
Yeah, I’m hoping the image is just a cute joke and that the lab is actually not dealing with anything hazardous.
I wonder - how exactly does this work?
For all I know, service dogs primarily help blind people or those with severe mental health issues.
The former must make working in a lab near impossible as most things are observed visually and also making an organized spot for a blind researcher must require thorough preparation and heavy assistance for every experiment. The latter might behave unpredictably, which doesn’t pair well with a lab environment, and might prompt the dog to rush to support without minding the environment, amplifying the issue.
Also, dog is an animal, and while they can be trained to behave well, they are unlikely to remember all safety rules, especially in a critical situation where they need to focus on aiding the owner.
I might be wrong by all points, since I didn’t ever see service dogs in a lab environment, and don’t commonly see them around, but I come from a point of genuine interest.
Could be an Alert Dog. I have e a neighbor with one, the Dog’s job is “Be a Dog unless daddy is about to go into diabetic shock, then calmly alert until someone does something.”
Not all service dogs have super big jobs, some are just like organic blood tests.
Interesting, the more I know!
Might teach my family diabetic’s cat some tricks, lol
Cats are theoretically capable of this, but the problem is that they’re much harder to train than dogs are.
There seems to be at least one case of it though
There are many people who are very blind but not completely so (e.g. really can’t see anything at a distance). They may be able to operate well in a lab environment.
There are people whose mental health issues are rare or can often be prevented with a service animal. Their “breakdowns” are likely not destructive anyway, so no real risk to the lab itself.
Service animals also sometimes help to warn that someone is about to have a seizure, so they can go somewhere safe.
Got it, thanks!
I had a friend whose service animal was trained to get her pill container from her purse or bag and bring it to her if she collapsed or otherwise called for them. Not sure what they were, never really asked or talked about it since she never initiated the topic but it was apparently sufficiently life threatening if she were to lose stability in a manner where she couldn’t take her medicine shortly after. I only really knew because there were some rooms her service animal was not authorized to enter and I would fulfill that role for her in those situations.
I mean they can be taking labs for an unrelated major like engineering. Still have to do a few chem classes for that
Fair, but I thought they may have some alternative route to get their credit
I’m my engineering degree chem 1,2, and 3 were required
Doggles!
No hate intended, I promise, but I will never understand why people react to seeing any dog as if it were their first time seeing a dog. I’m glad we have them, and I’m so grateful for service animals in particular, I just don’t understand the hyper-fixation.
Because the world is getting more grim dark by the hour so let me fawn over a dog in goggles for a minute and forget the pain dammit
doggles
So you don’t understand how it feels to find something cute? Or how people see other people as cute? Or as beautiful? Or as attractive? It’s just another human like everyone else, what’s the big deal? kind of?
Not mad about you not relating to the love for dogs, just curious. I feel the same way about human babies, but I’m aware that’s something similar to when I find something cute.
I do occasionally find people cute. But I don’t fawn over every person I see as if I’ve never seen a cute person before. This does not match my experience with the current cultural evaluation of dogs.
And maybe this is the crux of the issue, but I just don’t find human babies and dogs even remotely comparable. I have countless lifetimes worth of conditioning inside me compelling me to love, admire, protect human young; innate feelings and instincts on human babies written into my very DNA. Dogs are an animal.
I do sometimes find dogs cute, just like I sometimes find squirrels, lemurs, sloths, whatever cute, but it’s not an automatic response and it certainly doesn’t ever bring me to point of elation that seeing literally any random ass dog seems to bring so many others. I’m not even trying to suggest any judgement, if anything I’m just lamenting something that for my entire lifetime I have not been able to relate to or understand in my peers, which makes me feel somehow lacking, I guess.
Good point that there is a distinction between the quantity of cuteness (finding most of a population cute vs only a few individuals). Although part of it might be a cultural bias because cute dogs and hot people are given much more presentation in our society. Like watching a movie and nearly everyone is conventionally attractive. There are many dogs out there that aren’t cute at all, but they aren’t usually shown in posts/videos about cute dogs.
Regarding the evolutionary adaptation you were hinting at, I think the domestication syndrome makes it so that we see animals like dogs as partly infant-like. That is, bigger eyes, round features, etc. So maybe there is some trained response in us that reacts to those infant-like features? There is definitely some positive association because otherwise the domestication syndrome wouldn’t be such an universal thing.
I’m not even trying to suggest any judgement, if anything I’m just lamenting something that for my entire lifetime I have not been able to relate to or understand in my peers, which makes me feel somehow lacking, I guess.
I get that. Like I said, I feel somewhat similar towards human babies. Although since I’m an aunt and more in contact with infants/small children, I now understand it a bit better. I think you would probably find dogs much cuter once you get to develop a relationship with one. A friend of mine has been sitting a dog for some months now (only once a week) and his behavior towards dogs has completely shifted. Before he thought they were annoying or unimportant, now he always points out cute dogs in his environment. And I think building a connection is really the magic of it all. I grew up with a dog and she was really like my sister. I felt much sadder about her death than about my grandparents’ deaths, because I was closer to her than to them.
I’ve spent a lot of time around dogs, even bonded with and liked a few. Still a very distinctly different feeling than human affection for me, and still doesn’t help me understand for the uncanny glee people get at the mere sight of a dog. 🤷♂️ I don’t know if I’m broken, but this seems to be something that’s just outside my understanding
It’s fucked up that service dogs are the dogs you most want to pet, but you shouldn’t
Wait, you’re not supposed to pet service dogs?
i assume it can distract them from the things they need to be doing like paying attention for warning signs of seizures
No, they’re working. I know, I know; I’d be fine with people petting me while I’m working too…
He looks like he has no idea what he’s doing.
PhD candidate
He’s just like me!
Just like my ochem lab partner. We just huffed diethyl ether on the sly and tried not to fuck up too much.
So the Lab needs lab gear while in the lab?
Where’s xzibit when you need him?
It’s lab lab gear.
Do they also need little boots because no open toes?
Absolutely they do
Meeeow
I always felt bad for the service dogs that had to walk around with bare paws in the chemistry building at university. There’s no telling what kinda stuff tracks around the halls out of labs on peoples shoes. Especially the ochem labs.
This particular dog is fortunate enough to have shoes
What a good dog.
