“We’ve done this a million times without incident,” they say. Then, when the unthinkable happens, the narrative shifts to a different statistical myth: “What are the odds of that happening again?” or “Lightning never strikes twice.” But in real life, past success does...

With funding uncertainty, shifting grant landscapes, and AI throwing the pace of change into hyperdrive, it’s a stressful time, especially for academic labs. Pressure needs a pathway, and the University Washington (UW) found that its Laboratory Safety Awards &...

2025 was a big year for laboratory safety standards. New regulations and guidelines from organizations like OSHA, ANSI, EPA, and NFPA are reshaping how labs manage hazards. In this overview, we’ll highlight the biggest safety changes of 2025, how they affect lab...

A group of fourth- and fifth-graders enjoying a walk in a serene forest. What could possibly go wrong? A bear attack? Exactly. Last month, a class field trip in Bella Coola, British Columbia, turned tragic when a grizzly lunged into a group that had stopped to eat....

Fume hood functioning — check. Chemicals labeled — check. Routine safety checks are excellent for catching the usual. But recent headlines remind us that danger can also come from outside the lab walls. Sometimes, it comes crashing right through them. On October 10,...

During a routine chemical inventory inspection at a rural school, the Laboratory Safety Institute encountered a bottle of nitric acid — generally, nothing that rings the alarm bells, especially since the bottle was in a secondary containment box inside an acid...

A Stink That Sparked Panic Recently, residents of a British town thought disaster had struck when a strong “gassy” odor filled the street. Soon an engineer was on the scene, checking businesses one by one for a suspected leak. The culprit? Not a ruptured pipe or...

This summer, the Laboratory Safety Institute (LSI) is celebrating a remarkable achievement: our Net Promoter Score (NPS) for all courses averaged an outstanding 75 – a score that industry experts consider world-class. Even more exciting, our four Safer Science Summits...

Boom Goes the Data: The 2024 Fireworks Injury Surge From 2008 to 2023, emergency room visits from fireworks-related injuries were steadily climbing upward, increasing by an average of 550 each year, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. But in 2024,...

Fire in the lab! What to do? Welcome to the Safety Q & A series, fire edition: the Laboratory Safety Institute's answers to your most burning questions.   Q1: What if the fire is small and contained? Do you always need a fire extinguisher? If the fire is...