# Microwaving a living animal

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microwaving-a-living-animal/578453>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 15, 2011, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microwaving-a-living-animal/578453 "2011-04-15T05:00:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\
**Post date:** [April 15, 2011, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microwaving-a-living-animal/578453/21 "2011-04-15T19:00:22Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> Poor cat. Ants can survive a microwaving as a microwave produces hot spots of microwave radiation and the ants sense and avoid them, although I’ve since read that it is because they are smaller than the wavelengths of the microwaves.

Those are the same explanation. The size of the hot spots and the cold spots in a microwave oven are of order of the wavelength, so “small relative to the wavelength” means the same thing as “small enough to fit in a cold spot”. And the sense by which ants avoid the hot spots is probably just by feeling the heat.

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