31 questions · 22 almanac · 0 findings

Occupational Health and Safety

Workplace hazards, ergonomics, and safety science.

Almanac Practically Unsinkable, Precisely Wrong
  • What safety measures did the 1914 International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea introduce after the disaster?
  • How has the International Ice Patrol tracked North Atlantic icebergs since its founding in response to the Titanic?
Almanac The World Had Formed a View
  • What restrictions had the South African government already placed on Albert Lutuli by the time he won the Nobel Peace Prize?
Almanac A Law Against Owning Beakers
  • What did Texas's 1989 anti-drug law actually require to legally purchase laboratory glassware?
  • Who ended up being caught by a law meant to target drug manufacturers, and why?
Almanac Six Pages on How to Brew Tea Properly
  • What specific brewing parameters does BS 6008 stipulate for making a standard cup of tea?
  • Why do laboratories need a standardised tea-brewing method when comparing different teas?
  • What made the Ig Nobel committee treat a technical standard as a literary text?
Almanac Two Saved Digits, Four Decades Later
  • What kinds of failures were feared if two-digit year fields misread '00' as 1900?
  • Why does it remain unresolved whether the remediation effort was necessary or the threat was overstated?
Almanac A Danger Nobody Was Willing to Name
  • What typically caused the ceramic lavatories in the study to fail?
  • Why does the entry argue this kind of undignified hazard gets overlooked by safety literature?
Almanac Dragging a Sheep, Rigorously
  • What forces did the researchers measure when studying how sheep are moved across a shearing shed floor?
  • Why was this study funded as an occupational health investigation rather than as a joke?
Almanac How Many Fingers Does a Knob Need
  • How does the number of fingers people use to turn a knob change as the knob's diameter increases?
  • Why does this finding matter for designers of control panels, medicine bottles, and door handles?
Almanac Drunk Bats Lose Their Sonar
  • What connection did the researchers draw between impaired bat sonar and aviation safety research?