On Wed, Feb 08, 2006 at 01:41:15AM -0600, M Graff wrote:
> >>The scary thing is termites in houses are destroyed using microwaves 
> > 
> > 
> > I'm curious as to what happens to nails and wires in the building. And
> > even more curious about Ed's 75kW microwave finding a waterpipe
> > 
> 
> According to the people who did the microwaving, nothing.  They don't 
> even wear protective gear.  They said it barely penetrates skin (it 
> would get warm only if you put your hand in front of it) but the bugs 
> have such a low mass and the microwave energy has no problem heating the 
> whole bug to "hot enough to make it dead."

Which doesn't really take much too. The enzymes that life depends on
usually all stop working well before 60C, even in insects. Now of course
some life is specialized for different temp ranges, but for stuff used
to room temperature 60C is insanely hot. It's why you *can* get burns
from stuff well below boiling, it just takes awhile for the heat damage
to set in.

As you say, heating something up that small to a uniform "high"
temperature would be trivial so long as you can get the microwaves
there.

-- 
pete@petertodd.ca http://www.petertodd.ca
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