Australian astrophysicist gets magnets stuck up nose while inventing Covid-19 device

An Australian astrophysicist was admitted to hospital after four magnets stuck up his nose when he was trying to invent a device that would refrain people from touching their faces, advice given by World Health Organization to prevent coronavirus, the Guardian reported.

Astrophysicist Dr Daniel Reardon, a research fellow at the Melbourne University, was trying to build a necklace with the four powerful neodymium magnets that would beep if the wearer touches their face.

The 27-year-old Reardon, who studies pulsars and gravitational waves, said he was trying to invent the necklace to escape from boredom that has been brought by social distancing and isolation.

He told the Guardian Australia: “I had a part that detects magnetic fields. 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. A bit of boredom in isolation made me think of that.”

However, the academic realized the electronic part he had, did the opposite – and would only complete a circuit when there was no magnetic field present.

“I accidentally invented a necklace that buzzes continuously unless you move your hand close to your face,” he said.

He narrated his ordeal and said that after scrapping that idea, he started playing with the magnets. He explained further: “It’s the same logic as clipping pegs to your ears – I clipped them to my earlobes and then clipped them to my nostrils and things went downhill pretty quickly when I clipped the magnets to my other nostril.”

Reardon said he placed two magnets inside his nostrils, and two on the outside. When he removed the magnets from the fixed outside his nose, the two inside stuck together. The researcher then attempted to use his remaining magnets to remove them.

He said that Google told him to use more magnets to get rid of the magnets stuck up his nose. But, when he tried that, he lost the grip and the magnets with which he was trying to pull, ended up getting attracted to the nostril. Reardon also tried pliers to attract the magnets out, but they became magnetized instead.

He rushed to the hospital, and a team of two doctors then applied an anaesthetic spray and manually removed the magnets from Reardon’s nose.

The astrophysicist told Guardian Australia that he had ruled out further experiments with the magnets and face-touching and would find other ways to pass the time while at home.

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