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Re:Chimpanzees Are into Crystals by iberator on Wednesday March 04, 2026 @12:28PM (#47250844)
Microwaves were invented as hamster defrost machines. Seriously!
Re:Chimpanzees Are into Crystals by gardncl on Wednesday March 04, 2026 @01:52PM (#47252075)
And it worked, but unfortunately humans are too big for it to work on us.

They were able to freeze hamsters entirely then reanimate them with a microwave.

Re:Chimpanzees Are into Crystals by buttermeup on Wednesday March 04, 2026 @04:36PM (#47254249)
While that sounds like an interesting tidbit, it also doesn’t appear remotely true based off of the history sections in the wiki pages for microwaves and microwave ovens.
Re:Chimpanzees Are into Crystals by Retric on Wednesday March 04, 2026 @05:09PM (#47254653)
That article is somewhat revisionist.

> In 1945, the heating effect of a high-power microwave beam was independently and accidentally discovered by Percy Spencer

Sure, meanwhile using microwaves to heat stuff up dates back to the 1920’s. WWII soldiers would regularly stand in front microwave equipment to warm up. The resonant-cavity magnetron was a British invention that finally made microwaves far more efficient to produce.

The story about noticing a candy bar melting in his pocket is also kind of funny as that’s what normally happens to candy bars in your pockets, further it means he didn’t notice he himself warming up.

Re:Chimpanzees Are into Crystals by radishingr on Thursday March 05, 2026 @11:46AM (#47263927)
The Tom Scott video(https://youtu.be/2tdiKTSdE9Y) did a pretty good summary of the Percy Spencer microwave (a giant commercial oven) and the later parallel development by J. E. Lovelock of a small microwave to reheat small mammals for experiments with cryorevival (replacing lamps and hot paddles).