Stench-laden lab projects, the worst of them probably being isocyanide testing for amines, a positive test ''rewards'' the chemist with the most virulent, most abysmally stygian reek imaginable. Quite indescribable, just...it isn't a bad smell. Its nasal rape. Not as toxic as their isomeric cyanide brethren, but quite bad enough to wish it WAS indeed HCN one was dealing with, rather than an isocyanide/isonitrile, the stinks are just...good good. Nasty. I'm just glad I have no need for the Ugi reaction, which uses potentially large scale quantities of isonitrile/isocyanides, I'd probably get kicked out of the house for good, if I did a Ugi, my old man just says 'if it has chemical weapon potential, shouldn't you be doing it outside' but I reckon if I ever ran a Ugi bis-amide synthesis, he'd skin me.
He's USED to deadly poison gases and stuff that takes anything it touches up in flames, but stinkers, he'd skin me, if they were bad enough and persistent enough. And isocyanides are both, and SOME are toxic too, such as cyclohexyl isonitrile, which both brutally stinks most likely (never handled it, never want to either) like its evil relatives, AND possesses the toxicity so well infamous of the cyanides IIRC.
