Why a mosquito wasnot died after 2 minutes in a Microwave ?

[cobi]

By chance, I had an experiment as following: I put an mosquito in a microwave oven but the mosquito was not died for 2 minutes!

Some one can explain for me the reasons why the above mosquito wasnot died?

Thank you very much in advance!

[mith]

Simple, uneven heating.

[Dr.Stein]

Did you plug in the cord? What about the temperature?

[Vada]

Hahaha.. Dr.Stein is right..
Hm, I thought I ever read about mosquitos, about uneven heating too, but I forgot it.. 😥

[MrMistery]

What’s the deal with uneven heating? I have never heard of it…

[mith]

The microwaves don’t spread over the whole oven. Try heating a plate of food and you’ll find that some parts will be hot and some will be cold. Anything the size of an ant or so would be able to crawl to the cooler areas.

[Jelanen]

Yeah, microwave ovens don’t irradiate the whole compartment evenly. Somewhere I read that most have “hot” zones about the shape of a mushroom centered in the middle of the oven. That prolly varies from oven to oven though. Thats why ovens have rotating platters and you have to stop and stir to get evenly heated food.
-Jelanen

[cobi]

Thanks for sharing the information! Is there any other reason? I don’t think that the uneven heating only!
How about the reason related to the mosquito body composition?
There is just a very little of water in the hungry mosquito , so the mosquito is not absorbed the microvave radiant, induce the mosquito is not be heated, and still alive? Is that right? (I don’t know exactly how much the containing water in the mosquito body composition, just thinking)

This is my thinking in these days~

quote Dr.Stein:

Did you plug in the cord? What about the temperature?

Don’t think so! I have checked rightly and the used temperature was high enough to cook a potato to be done!

[EmmVeePee]

How small of a mosquito?

Again, I’ve seen lab results that microwaves can’t kill small creatures.

[MrMistery]

This is the kind of thing you see on Mithbusters 😀

[mothorc]

I think your experiment are not exactly.
I did it with an ant and it die immediately.( the glass disc still cold)
The mosquito will alive when it doesn’t contain water. or some liqid

[Vada]

Well, does microwave matter about the size?
Er.. so the mosquito will die if it is in a drought and hot area..
Argh I did not get it 🙁

[protozoan]

Was that mosquito fixed or so? Cause if not he can very quickly fly trough the whole area of microwave oven and find cooler area while ant cannot.

[mith]

Here’s a website on some cool(dangerous) experiements!

http://amasci.com/weird/microexp.html

Accordin to that website, microwave hotspots may depend on individual microwaves. Some might have better technology to spread the heat.

[cobi]

Thanks to mithrilhack and the others.

I read the site that mithrilhack recommended, i mostly understood what i did’t before.
You can read the below cite, it is so clear to answer the question!

quote :

I nuked the fruit flies on the food, but they survived!

I noticed the same thing. There are several possibilities. First, the pattern of heating inside the oven is NOT uniform: there are hot spots and cold spots, and the hot spots don’t touch the metal walls. If a bug crawls on the oven surface, it’s fairly safe. Also, if you’re cooking a large hunk of food at the time, then this food absorbs the RF energy like mad, and insects won’t get as hot as when the oven is totally empty. Also, insects have built-in behavior to avoid being cooked by sunlight… if they feel hot, they crawl faster, and if the heat stops, they stop too. Perhaps when you turn on the oven, all the bugs move until they hit a cold spot in the radio wave pattern, then they stay in that spot. (If a bug was on the rotating glass platter, then it’s out of luck.)

[mothorc]

the glass disc was used still cold when my ant died

[Author]

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