Busting A Myth? 🐜 Ants In A Microwave 🐜

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      Have you ever wondered whether or not ants could survive being microwaved? No? Me neither. In fact, the last thing I want to think about right before I eat are bugs. Plus, ants crawling around the microwave would certainly make me lose my appetite.

      Myth #1: Would ants crawling around the microwave cause me to lose my appetite?

      This past spring, the school I was working at developed a pretty bad ant problem. Considering this was an elementary school, that was not surprising.

      What was surprising, is that a colony of ants moved into the microwave in the teacher's lounge. I didn't even know this could happen. They were living inside of it somewhere. One teacher complained to me that, no matter how many times she killed the ones in the nuke zone, they kept returning.

      Ewww. I opened up the microwave and saw about 20-30 ants inside. There were some dead ones. Flattened by the door. But, most were just crawling around the inside the way ants do. Double ewww. Quickly, I closed the door. Possibly crushing a couple more.

      I would be eating my lunch cold that day. If I ate it at all. I had pasta, too. And I hate cold pasta. Thank God I didn't have rice. I definitely wouldn't have ate. But, I ended up eating all of my cold penne arrabbiata.

      So, to answer the question, Would ants crawling around the microwave cause me to lose my appetite? The answer is...probably not. Unless there's rice. Well, that was lame. I promise the next myth will have a definitive answer.

      Myth #2: Could ants survive being microwaved?

      As I ate my cold lunch, another teacher entered the lounge. We exchanged pleasantries and she proceeded to the fridge. I had assumed she knew about the ants. So, I thought it was weird when she casually put her food in the microwave and started it up. She's got some cojones, I thought.

      Then she opened the microwave to take her food out. What? There's ants all over the microwave. Oh my God, she didn't know. Then, like any good teacher, she made the observation that the ants survived the microwave. "Really?" I asked. Yeah. They're still walking around. Not only that, she still ate her lunch.

      Theories:

      1) Size. There are hot spots inside of microwaves. There are ares that get very, very powerful microwaves. And, there are areas that get almost nothing. This is why microwaves have turntables. Otherwise, parts of your food wouldn't be cooked. There's about 7.5 cm between these hot spots. So, ants simply have to hang out in these spots to avoid being cooked.

      2) Moisture. Microwaves work by exciting(boiling) the water that is contained in our food. Like most insects, ants contain too little water to be affected.

      3) Chitin. An ants exoskeleton material will resist microwaves.

Reference

TheNakedScientists
PhysicsForums

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_{Thank you, Snook!}