What a bunch of overblown crap... "wildly irresponsible" my ass! It's perfectly safe holding a piece of red-hot glass, as long as you don't hold the red-hot pa

What a bunch of overblown crap... "wildly irresponsible" my ass! It's perfectly safe holding a piece of red-hot glass, as long as you don't hold the red-hot part. But since the red-hot part is also the part that's in the Bunsen burner, you generally don't do that. Glass has such low thermal conductivity that the part that's not heated stays at room temperature. Edit: I "played" with most of those as a "kid" (the radioactive kit excluded, that would have been awesome.) I put those words in citation marks because I wouldn't call it play, per se, and there's obviously an age limit. But, believe it or not, "kids" (something like 12 and up) are capable of being perfectly responsible and learning proper respect for things like using tools. Heck, in many countries kids are saddled with real responsibilities at those ages. Receive responsibility and you will learn responsibility. But if you lived the sheltered life that typical American kids seem to live, I guess you have no way of knowing that...