ENHANCED airport security has created some interesting problems for geologists, palaeontologists and other scientists who do fieldwork.
Knowing the tender loving care that baggage handlers customarily lavish on checked luggage, they prefer to carry vital specimens with them in the cabin. According to the vertebrate palaeontology mailing list, one palaeontologist had to persuade security personnel that a 9-kilogram plaster block he was carrying was not a bludgeon he intended to use on the crew or fellow passengers but a fossil skull wrapped in plaster to prevent damage. They eventually agreed to let him on board if he kept it on…
