|
|
[ Home Page | Message Boards | News | Archive | Ask Cecil | Books | Buy Stuff | FAQs, etc. ]
24-Sep-1982
Dear Cecil:
Once again I feel compelled to solicit your enlightenment. Your
answer to my inquiry regarding my childhood slaughter of houseflies
was most impressive. While it did not drive me to racquetball,
neither did it repress what appears to be a deeply rooted psychotic
desire to decimate the insect population. I have killed again.
Last week I visited my cousin, who is at least as deviate as
myself, and whose domicile is infested with cockroaches. We
conceived the notion of putting one of the verminous creatures into
the microwave oven. When one strolled conspicuously onto the
counter top, we seized it, imprisoned it in a bottle, and inserted
it into the death chamber.
Two minutes passed without result. Four minutes. Five. Disgruntled,
we persevered for ten more minutes before it became apparent that
we had a corpse on our hands. Our question is this: if water boils
in three minutes, what took so long for our odious deed to be
accomplished? --Two Malefactors in Suspense, Chicago
Dear Malefactors:
The study of the effects of microwave ovenry on bugs is still in
its infancy, unfortunately, so we can't provide a definitive
answer to this inquiry. However, several possible explanations come
to mind.
(1) You did not have the microwave plugged in. In the end the
cockroach may simply have died of boredom. Many worthwhile
experiments have come to grief because of carelessness with the
scientific apparatus.
(2) The insect you were attempting to incinerate was not really a
cockroach. Your basic member of the Blattidae (cockroach) family
goes into a heat stupor at about 105 degrees Fahrenheit and expires
a couple degrees above that. The larvae of certain West African
midges, though, will recover at least briefly from five-minute
exposures to 392 degrees Fahrenheit. Possibly, therefore, what you
thought was a cockroach was really a West African midge traveling
incognito.
(3) Your cousin has a Popeil pocket microwave or some similar inexpensive brand that heats unevenly. Uneven heating to some extent is
inherent in microwave cookery. Most manufacturers provide
various methods to eliminate the problem, but some ovens have
cold spots. Your intended victim may have been the beneficiary of
one. Alternatively, if there was a metal cap on the bottle you trapped
the cockroach in--metal in microwaves, incidentally, is definitely
contraindicated--the metal may have deflected the lethal radiation,
delaying death.
(4) What you took to be evidence that the cockroach was still alive
was really its death throes. Permanent nerve damage generally
results early on in tests of this nature. If you had administered an IQ
test to the cockroach at the three-minute mark
possibly you would have discovered that it had been reduced to imbecility.
(5) Seriously (well, as seriously as you can get under the circumstances), it's generally agreed that microwave energy interacts most strongly with water. The best candidate for microwaving is something that's uniformly moist. Cockroaches contain very little moisture--OK, very little of anything--and their external body parts are quite dry, making them less susceptible to microwaves. They do contain some moisture, of course, but given their small size and the unevenness of microwave radiation already alluded to, they can simply dodge bullets for a time.
Finally, lads, while one appreciates your efforts, I feel compelled
to point out that using a 1,000-watt microwave to snuff bugs is a
bit . . . Vietnamesque, if you take my meaning. What's wrong with a good
shot to the exoskeleton with a shoe?
--CECIL ADAMS
The Straight Dope / Questions or
comments for Cecil Adams to: cecil@chicagoreader.com
Comments regarding this website to: webmaster@straightdope.com
Copyright © 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 Chicago Reader, Inc. All rights reserved.
No material contained in this site may be republished or reposted without express written
permission.
The Straight Dope is a registered trademark of Chicago
Reader, Inc.