research mishap

[james_davis_nicoll]

An Australian astrophysicist has been admitted to hospital after getting four magnets stuck up his nose in an attempt to invent a device that stops people touching their faces during the coronavirus outbreak.

Comments

[arkessian]

I howled with laughter when I read this.... and Frank Spencer came irresistibly to mind. Oohh Betty! YouTube is a treasure trove.

[rdm]

This, Gentlebeings, is what happens when scientists get bored.

Not great discoveries.

"Incidents". We should all be grateful the individual involved was only an astrophysicist. Who knows what could have happened that poor city if they had been a chemist or nuclear physicist.

[tree_and_leaf]

It's not all that different to Newton's decision, while hiding from the plague, to investigate the back of the human eye. By sticking a probe into his own eye socket, and having a poke about. (Astonishingly, he didn't manage to blind himself).

[arkessian]

Was this before or after the apple?

[dewline]

No wonder that Jonathan Hickman made Newton the villain of his two SHIELD mini-series for Marvel!

[cynthia1960]

Hm, I'm a chemist and have managed not to blow up stuff when I'm bored :). This guy is going to have a hard time living this down.

[beamjockey]

One strategy would be to embrace his fame; every time he gives a talk on pulsar timing observations, open with "Yes, I'm the guy who put magnets up his nose." If he can follow it with a (brief) hilarious personal account, so much the better. "When I got out of the hospital, thankfully with my nose sore but intact, I went back to looking at pulsars..." Next slide shows pulsar data.

This would be better than having a wave of whispers going through the audience, followed by a wave of giggles,* while the speaker bravely pretends everything is normal-- until some wiseacre asks a question about "intense magnetic fields."

The quicker Dr. Dearborn raises the Nasal Neodymium Incident, the quicker it will cease to be a nine-day-wonder and fade into the past.



*In the manner of the Second City Funeral Sketch.

[cynthia1960]

This makes sense!

[beamjockey]

He's already moved in that direction, by telling a journalist that his roommate, and the hospital workers, made fun of him. Seems resigned to it.

[cynthia1960]

Probably better than fighting it.

[jessie_c]

In a twitter thread about this story I saw a Theoretical Physicist remark that the incident which caused him to become a Theoretical Physicist and not an Experimental Physicist was the time in his senior lab class when he dropped the Plutonium...

[julian]

Everybody sing! "My mommy... said not to put *beans* up my nose... beans up my nose... beans up my nose..." (Sadly, "magnets" doesn't scan.)

[doire]

And then he said his partner took him to the hospital, not to have them removed, but to exhibit him to her colleagues. No wonder he looks so glum.

[princessofgeeks]

Not enough facepalm in the world.

[cynthia1960]

Or headdesk.

[elusis]

"Dogs in Elk" quality literature, that.

[kathmandu]

Most people learn not to do that in nursery school.

[conuly]

Surprisingly, no. This is why it's those fun magnets largely went off the market - too many middle schoolers, unsupervised at lunch, were accidentally swallowing the things while goofing off and giving themselves fake piercings, something which has the potential to lead to serious injury (especially if you are too embarrassed to tell the school nurse, much less your parents!)

[rpresser]

Everyone I've showed this to has said "Gee, there's someone in Australia just as dumb as you are, Ross! Except he has a PhD in astrophysics."

[keith_morrison]

Evidence, if any was needed, that just because you have a PhD you are not immune from being a complete dumbass.

Also; being an expert in one field does not mean you are an expert in all fields.

[phantom_wolfboy]

Well, his uh, his heart was in the right place, anyway.

[jessie_c]

I am reminded of Cheech and Chong

[dormouse1953]

Suddenly I've thinking of this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cIn6HfhzTc