Astrophysicist Gets Magnets Stuck In Nose Experimenting With A COVID-19 Device

An Australian astrophysicist is hilariously paying the price for experimenting too far with a COVID-19 prevention device.

Dr. Daniel Reardon is a 27-year-old researcher, at Melbourne University in Australia, and is helping the fight against COVID-19.

"I thought that if I built a circuit that could detect the magnetic field, and we wore magnets on our wrists, then it could set off an alarm if you brought it too close to your face," said Dr. Reardon in a Guardian Australia interview. "A bit of boredom in isolation made me think of that."

After the first prototype failing he decided to move the magnets around his body and continued his bored research. That's where Dr. Reardon stuck the magnets up his nostrils and the situation turned ugly.

"After struggling for 20 minutes, I decided to Google the problem and found an article about an 11-year-old boy who had the same problem. The solution in that was more magnets. To put on the outside to offset the pull from the ones inside," said. Dr. Reardon in his Guardian Australia interview.

“As I was pulling downwards to try and remove the magnets, they clipped on to each other and I lost my grip. And those two magnets ended up in my left nostril while the other one was in my right. At this point I ran out of magnets.”

After realizing his situation Dr. Reardon admitted himself to the hospital where medical staff removed the magnets.

“My partner took me to the hospital that she works in because she wanted all her colleagues to laugh at me. The doctors thought it was quite funny, making comments like ‘This is an injury due to self-isolation and boredom.’