Wed 02 Nov 2005 CanWest News Service Glories of science fleeting for this Top 10. Hungry polar bears, black flies lands sole Canadian on worst jobs list by Charles Mandel If you think your job sucks, consider Peter Kershaw's. The biogeographer and associate professor at the University of Alberta spends a good chunk of his year in Churchill, Man., fending off polar bears as well as massive swarms of black flies, mosquitoes, and deerflies locally known as "bulldogs." It's all in a day's work leading volunteer Earthwatch Institute groups in the study of trapped carbon in the melting permafrost of the region's peatlands. Kershaw's job has the distinction of being ranked eighth among the Top 10 Worst Jobs in Science in the current issue of Popular Science magazine. Kershaw is the only Canadian on the list that includes such less-than-desirable science gigs as volcanologist, nuclear weapons scientist, manure inspector, human lab rat, Kansas biology teacher, and semen washer. "The idea wasn't to find 10 people to absolutely humiliate and ruin their careers. It's a way to celebrate these scientists who are really in the trenches,'' said John Galvin, the freelance journalist who wrote the story for Popular Science. The long list, derived from readers' e-mails and editors' ideas, nominated about 100 horrible scientific jobs. Galvin polled scientists he'd interviewed for previous stories and inquired among academics he knew to find many of the positions. "These people are not going to be writing bestselling popular books about their scientific exploration. They're not Stephen Hawking, but they're all doing important work," Galvin said in a phone interview from Dallas. They're also doing "challenging" work, as Kershaw put it. "You come out the other side a more manly man and a more womanly woman,'' the 53-year-old scientist joked. Galvin writes about people on Kershaw's expeditions receiving "golf-ball-sized welts" from bug bites, and of a game called "Page Count," the object of which is to close your notebook as quickly as possible and then count the number of mosquitoes killed. The record is 56 with one whack. So is Kershaw's job as bad as Galvin makes out? Actually it's worse. Kershaw talks about carrying a starter pistol with a flare to ward off polar bears and that's just for jogging. When the Earthwatch groups volunteers who pay as much as $3,000 weekly to work in the name of science head out, one of the staff is always armed with a loaded shotgun. Galvin never mentioned the shotgun-wielding graduate students. "They get that funny look in their eye and you know it's time for a day off,'' Kershaw said with a chuckle. Nor did Galvin point out that the volunteers who sign up to work in Churchill in February face extreme cold that even their parkas, pants and snow gloves won't protect them against if they're not used to -40 C weather. "It can be cold in the summer, too,'' observed Kershaw, eager to point out further benefits of having one of the world's worst scientific positions. Blue Magruder, an Earthwatch spokesperson, concurs that Kershaw's job has little obvious appeal. "It's no fun. You risk death if you're not properly dressed and don't know how to take care of yourself." While it's true Kershaw's job is gruelling, it's equally evident the scientist is an inspiration. On Saturday, he will be in Boston to be honoured by Earthwatch as their 2005 Principal Investigator of the Year. Kershaw has led 135 Earthwatch volunteers in research that looks at the response of regional ecosystems to climate change. His year-round field studies incorporate automated monitoring to track the impact of global warming on the region's flora and fauna. "The fact that people will go in 40 or 50 degree centigrade negative temperature to look for micro-organisms in the snow is just mind-boggling,'' Magruder said. "That just tells you the kind of person he is. He's a fabulous guy." At least Kershaw is garnering accolades for his work. The so-called semen washers should be so lucky. The term is used to describe cryobiologists, or lab technicians who work at sperm banks. After checking for sperm counts under a microscope, they spin the samples in a centrifuge to separate the plasma from motile cells. The process is known as washing. But for every job that sounds as if it could be the worst of the worst, another exists to make it pale by comparison. The No. 1 slot this year went to the Human Lab Rats, students who made $15 US an hour to have pesticides shot into their eyes and noses for an industry-funded study at the University of California at San Diego. Remember that when you head to work next Monday.