Here's the science behind the man who turned himself into a goat

Last year, Thomas Thwaites decided to take a break from being a human and escape all his worries by transforming himself into a goat.

As he chronicles in detail in his book, "GoatMan: How I Took a Holiday from Being Human" (out May 17), the process wasn't easy and required a lot of body-hacking science. Along the way, he consulted everyone from neurologists, to animal muscle specialists.

Here's how he managed to pull it off.

Altering the mind

First, he had to understand the mind of goats. So he met with a goat behavioral expert, who told him what goes on in a goat's brain. Unfortunately for Thwaites, who wanted to become worry-free, goats do tend to get anxious, he learned. He also learned about the goat's social behavior, as well as how clever they can be (one goat faked a limp to get out of an activity).

Going from two to four-legged

Digesting grass

Beyond a goat-like anatomy, Thwaites also had to learn how to eat like a goat. Goats, like other plant eaters, have an organ called a rumen that is filled with microorganisms that help them break down grass into edible sugars.

Thwaites considered swallowing a microbial mixture that would mimic the rumen and help him digest the grass, but he was told that would be unsafe; who knew what kind of bugs live in a goat's rumen that could potentially be harmful to a human's gut? Thwaites also considered using a chemical enzyme that would break down the grass, though that also presented some safety problems.

In the end, he built himself a pouch to collect the grass he grazed on during the day. Then at night he used a pressure cooker to cook the grass and break it down into a kind of "grass-stewy soup."

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