Why The Project’s Carrie Bickmore and Waleed Aly couldn’t stop laughing

The Project hosts Carrie Bickmore and Waleed Aly burst into laughter on Tuesday as a scientist described how magnets became stuck up his nose.  

Astrophysicist Dr Daniel Reardon recounted how his attempt at an ‘anti face-touch’ device designed to help limit the spread of coronavirus went horribly wrong.

‘The idea was to wear the magnets on your hand and some device around your neck that could detect the presence of a magnetic field,’ he explained. 

Waleed and Carrie were intrigued by the device, which they thought was a clever idea. That is, until Dr Reardon described what happened next. 

‘After I played around with the first version of this device, it didn’t end up working so I was just mindlessly playing with the magnets,’ he said. 

He first clipped the magnets to his earlobes and then decided to clip them to his nostrils, which is when they all got stuck together. 

The panel burst into hysterics as Daniel described the calamity. 

‘I did try pliers myself. Unfortunately, they were made of steel and attracted to the magnets. So that was quite painful,’ he added. 

 At that moment, fellow panellists Ryan Fitzgerald and Peter Helliar started laughing. 

Daniel was eventually taken to hospital, where the magnets were removed.

‘Did you tell the other scientists you slipped in the shower?’ Peter asked. In response, the scientist said he wasn’t embarrassed by the incident.

Turning to their attention to the original idea, Carrie asked if Daniel was going to try and push forward with the concept.

‘This was just something I came up with in boredom – but I was really surprised I did get a lot of positive feedback about the idea,’ Daniel said. 

He added that a number of people had e-mailed him with genuine suggestions for how to improve the prototype. 

‘In these times at the moment, we really need something to laugh and smile about,’ Carrie said, wrapping up the segment. ‘And you have provided that.’