Entomology, chemical ecology, evidence-based environmentalism and science in general. I like big bugs and I cannot lie.

Thursday 20 November 2008

Fearsome forceps

I need your help people! I have to choose some forceps to hold the sponges for taking tear samples from Gambian children with, and need to know which type looks least threatening. I'd imagine that a small Gambian sprog would be pretty upset by a crazy white woman attempting to stick something in his eye even if the forceps used were made of kittens and candyfloss, but I'd appreciate it if you could tell me which type looks least scary.

Plastic:

Round-tipped:

Please vote with the poll thingumy on the right, in between all the other random gizmos that I seem to be accumulating.

2 comments:

Katie said...

Can't believe the plastics are losing!

Colour is much less scary than cold metally one (in my opinion).

Imogen said...

Myself I'd prefer the metal ones because
a) they look less pointy, ie less "sharp", and so less scary
and
b) they look like my grandmother's tweezers, which gives me the hope that even someone in a poor community in a developing country might recognise them and think "Those look like tweezers" instead of "What the heck is this green thing she's trying to poke me in the eye with?"
But of course I know b*gger all about these things.
Imogen.