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Needing to boil some water for a quick brew this morning, i put threequarters of a mug of water into the microwave for 2 minutes on full power. Sure enough, boiling water was produced so i opened the microwave door to retrieve the cup, and a steady stream of small red ants scurried out of the open door off the glass plate thingy at the base. Why weren't they cooked?
The microwaves miss them!
stolen from the net,
Microwave ovens heat foods by subjecting them to high frequency (2.5GHz) radio waves that excite the atoms (creating friction) within the foods. A microwave, produces what is called a standing wave pattern. These "standing waves" concentrate the microwave energy vertically at specific points within the oven, most being towards the center and less concentrated at the interior walls of the oven. The reason a microwave oven has a turntable is to rotate the food so that all parts of it pass through one of these standing waves.
Ants, being quite small, are able to avoid these standing waves within the microwave oven, and therefore not get cooked. If an ant was subjected to microwave energy and restrained, so that it could not get out of the heat so to say, it would die.
So if i tie them down first, or use the really big red ones they should cook ok?
Yup . . . bon appetit