ScienceScience21 Science Fails That Will Make You CringeWould you rather accidentally swallow rat semen or infect yourself with rabies? Sometimes, the greatest fails lead to the best discoveries.By by Natasha UmerBuzzFeed StaffPosted on May 19, 2015, 6:35 pmTwitterFacebookLink 1. Andrew Robinson @AndrewR_Physics Froze my shoes by spilling liquid nitrogen on them. Didn't notice for a few minutes due to thermal properties of shoes. 😨 #sciencefail 11:03 AM - 19 May 2015 Reply Retweet Favorite Tap to play GIF Tap to play GIF 2. Katherine L. Bryant @EvoNeuro Another #sciencefail ! 1st week working in microbiology lab that studied enteropathic E. coli. Called in sick 2nd day, everyone knew why 02:53 AM - 19 May 2015 Reply Retweet Favorite 3. Dr. Alistair Dove @AlistairDove Misspelling "frontispiece", literally the VERY FIRST WORD in my Honours thesis #sciencefail 02:23 AM - 19 May 2015 Reply Retweet Favorite 4. Phil Plait @BadAstronomer #sciencefail Used TOTAL instead of INTEGRAL to count photons in a simulator, and we blasted our $1MM detector with 10x too much light. 02:12 AM - 19 May 2015 Reply Retweet Favorite 5. Jason Rasgon @vectorgen @realscientists Not me, but I know several people who gave themselves lab-acquired malaria. #sciencefail 02:01 AM - 19 May 2015 Reply Retweet Favorite Tap to play GIF Tap to play GIF 6. Jehannine Austin @J9_Austin @realscientists I over-microwaved agarose gel ...boiling glob shot out of flask, over lab partition, missed the postdoc by cms #sciencefail 02:00 AM - 19 May 2015 Reply Retweet Favorite 7. David M Watson @D0CT0R_Dave . @realscientists my #sciencefail was opening mist-nets too early in a Mexican cloud forest--caught a cranky vampire bat that gave me rabies 01:57 AM - 19 May 2015 Reply Retweet Favorite 8. Nikki Roach @niksroach @realscientists 1st time running the boat; didn't buy nautical maps #sciencefail positive = free beer from onlookers 01:52 AM - 19 May 2015 Reply Retweet Favorite 9. Andrew Kniss @WyoWeeds @realscientists I once weighed pounds instead of ounces and applied a herbicide at 16-times the recommended rate. #sciencefail 01:45 AM - 19 May 2015 Reply Retweet Favorite 10. Mad Scientist Andrew @AmdAndrew @realscientists Had an intern come in sick while demonstrating laser safety. Laser heated vomit smells awful. #ScienceFail 01:43 AM - 19 May 2015 Reply Retweet Favorite Tap to play GIF Tap to play GIF 11. kdulal @kdulal @realscientists I was hit by a dead chicken in the face while collecting data in the farm #sciencefail 01:41 AM - 19 May 2015 Reply Retweet Favorite 12. James Byrne @SociableJim .@realscientists spilled 96x1.5ml tubes of boiling H2SO4 into lap. Melted lab coat, jeans, parts of chair & laminate on floor #sciencefail 01:41 AM - 19 May 2015 Reply Retweet Favorite 13. Maryam Khan @MaryamKahn @realscientists will never forget when I squirted wound fluid from infected leg ulcers all over my face and hair. #sciencefail 01:31 AM - 19 May 2015 Reply Retweet Favorite 14. Charmaine G. Brown @MsCharleyBrown @realscientists During a DNA extraction, I "incubated" samples for an hour...with the hotplate turned OFF #sciencefail 01:15 AM - 19 May 2015 Reply Retweet Favorite 15. Summer E. Allen @sumscience My #sciencefail: touched my jeans with radioactive gloves That's how I earned the nickname 'hot pants' 01:10 AM - 19 May 2015 Reply Retweet Favorite Tap to play GIF Tap to play GIF 16. Aly Baumgartner @kyrietree @realscientists To keep the field notebook out of the rain, I accidentally put it in patch of poison ivy. Didn’t go over well. #sciencefail 01:00 AM - 19 May 2015 Reply Retweet Favorite 17. Dan Peppe @danpeppe .@realscientists in the field for 8 weeks of geology/paleontology fieldwork, discovered I forgot my field boots. #ScienceFail 12:52 AM - 19 May 2015 Reply Retweet Favorite 18. Beth Waters @BethWatersNeuro @realscientists my lab mate squirted rat semen in his mouth. #sciencefails 02:04 AM - 19 May 2015 Reply Retweet Favorite Tap to play GIF Tap to play GIF 19. Alain Hardy @alain_hardy @realscientists I discovered that it's impossible to run away from your own trousers after dripping conc HCl on them. #sciencefail #OwOwOw 12:36 AM - 19 May 2015 Reply Retweet Favorite 20. Xenobio @coolvirus This paper has a typo, the primer concentration is missing a zero. I wasted 2 days #sciencefail #PCR http://t.co/AztGTkY9Ac 08:18 PM - 16 May 2015 Reply Retweet Favorite 21. James @FramesJaser @realscientists after 9 months of #sciencefail I generated 3 new gene KO strains of Cryptococcus all in the same week! #scienceFTW 02:54 AM - 19 May 2015 Reply Retweet Favorite Tap to play GIF Tap to play GIF Check out more science fails using the Twitter hashtag #sciencefail. Topics in this articleScience