this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
159 points (99.4% liked)

Animals with Jobs

4106 readers
216 users here now

Is it an animal? Does it have a job? Then it belongs here!

Our rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Our Rules


Rule 1- Be respectful and inclusive.

Everyone should feel welcome here.



Rule 2- No illegal or NSFW or NSFL content.

Violation of this rule will not be tolerated.



Rule 3- No advertisement or spam.

Violation of this rule will not be tolerated.



Rule 4- No inflammatory or controversial content.

Please stay away from politics and other divisive topics. This is meant to be a lighthearted community.



Community Moderation

For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

They tied a string to a ferret and got an atomic age pipe cleaner.

The ferret cost $35 and is 15 inches long. She helps clean the 300-foot pipes in the Meson Laboratory building now under construction at the $250 million National Accelerator Laboratory at Batavia.

top 4 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I wonder if the ferret pulled a brush of some sort, or if it was narrow enough that his/her fur is the cleaning material?

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 years ago

"A specially-made collar placed around Felicia's neck carries a string which she pulls through the pipe. To the end of this string workmen fasten an appropriate swab which is then pulled through the pipe by the workmen. After that the vacuum pipe is clean and free of unwanted scrap particles."

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Is a particle accelerator on off kind of thing or can radioactive particles get stuck or be created in the linings

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

I'm only a physics enthusiast, so I may be off on specifics, but yeah it should be on/off. These things aren't dealing with large particles as far as atoms go - you're looking at more like protons, electrons, etc. After the collision particles will typically decay very quickly, so you'll get all kinds of radiation, but the products of the decay are very short lived. You will sometimes have unstable isotopes created in the walls of the collider, but they're designed to be very safe and avoid that. And even if there was no thought given to the wellbeing of the ferret, humans work on and in colliders, so they need to be safe - not to mention how radioactivity could potentially throw off results.