The effect of alcohol

[Colonâ„¢]

I do pay attention to the prices of bottles of liquor in stores. I'd say 10€ is a typical prices for 3/4 litres of liquor.

[notyoueither]

It's been a long time since I frequented bars.

For one, smoking was banned in them some time ago and for another, I decided to not drink before I drive even longer ago. I'll have a pint with a meal, but being at a bar means more than 1 pint.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Krill
Compared to the **** I work with in chemistry labs a little ethanol isn;t going to do much more damage. Provost and Starchild have a good idea, I'm sure...

Oh there are some beauties I work with where I work - some are magnificently toxic

[bipolarbear]

Neurochemically, alcohol uses GABA (Gamma Amino-butryic Acid), an inhibitory neuro transmitter, to achieve its effects. So, basically yeah it makes you stupid by making you function less. I think though that it could also in some sense improve focus during certain activities by helping to block out extraneous sensation. Thus you get the "I'm better when I'm drunk." phenomenon.

[Sir Og]

I'd say that alcohol makes you more stupid but that is not necessarily a bad thing Things are funnier when you are more stupid.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Krill
nobecause I'd probably be dead in less than 5 minutes, but alot of the stuff can be absorbed through the skin...and I can't use latex, because I have an allergic reaction to it (and the allergy will worsen until I get an anaphylactic shock and die from that). The chemistry department refuse to issue nitrile gloves...and those don;t work well either with quite alot of stuff.

Are you British so backwards as to not have an OSHA equivalent body ("Occupational Safety and Health Administration") on your island?

In America not only would the university be breaking the law, and subject to substantial fines and penalties (not to mention be shut down if it continued to refuse non-latex gloves), but at least at the hospital my girlfriend works at, they have signs on the doors saying "DON'T OPEN WITH GLOVES ON" to remind people not to touch the doorknob with latex gloves so as to not risk damaging people with allergies.

Seriously, i'd look it up. I can't imagine you don't have some sort of law protecting your right to have adequate protection. Even if you're technically not an employee (being a student), that law should still apply to you (or something similar). Then write your university department head a short note sounding very apologetic but including a reference to said law somewhere in there.

Or if you have workplace accident lawyers for $0.10 a dozen over there, go ask one of them. They'll probably give you a free consult on the hope that you'll use them to sue the uni (which i'd presume you wouldn't, but still).

[Provost Harrison]

Yes, we have all that regulation too...

[Krill]

yeah, but most nonlatex gloves have other drawbacks...ones that I wouldn't expect a nonchemist to understand...