By senior year, he was performing minor surgery on pigeons' skulls so he could monitor their stages of activity and sleep via EEG.
He constructed an experimental apparatus that used sensors to track their eye movements. To do this, he had to anesthetize the pigeons and implant electrodes on their skulls.
Wires ran out of their heads into tiny pigeon "backpacks," and from there into his measuring apparatus.
But Fineberg had a small problem. Pigeons can turn their heads all the way around. And his pigeons kept ripping their wires out.
He was at his wits' end when he hit upon an unorthodox solution. It was 2 a.m. and he was sitting in the outer office of his advisor's suite. Suddenly he looked up and saw the phone--and the phone cord.
Fineberg removed the phone from the wall and cut off just enough curly phone cord to replace the pigeons' wires. Then he resoldered the phone into the wall.
"I never got asked about it," he says. "And I never explained. I kept checking to make sure it still worked."
It did--and so did his experiment. The pigeons couldn't tear up the phone cord. Fineberg got his measurements--and graduated magna cum laude with the Class of 1967.
Read more in News
What's the scariest thing that's ever happened to you?Recommended Articles
-
University Accounting Overhaul Year Behind, Over BudgetA year behind schedule and at twice the expected cost, Harvard's radical accounting overhaul known as Project ADAPT is finally
-
University News Office Plans to RestructureAfter a 19-year career in the Harvard News Office, yesterday the University tapped Joe Wrinn as its new Director of
-
Fineberg Takes Leave For SurgeryUniversity Provost Harvey V. Fineberg '67 is undergoing surgery this week for what appears to be an early stage of
-
Fineberg Recovering From SurgeryUniversity Provost Harvey V. Fineberg '67 is doing well and recovering at home following surgery late last week, Harvard spokesperson
-
Filling Rudenstine's ShoesA little over a week ago, Dean of Harvard Business School (HBS) Kim B. Clark '74 was explaining to a
-
CLAIMING THE NAME HARVARDIn the three weeks following the announcement of the Harvd name policy, the policy has begun to come into its
