This weeks question. - Go on it's fun!

[ALBPM]

The ant is small enough to take advantage of the Standing Wave Pattern in comercial microwves. Small enough to experience this pattern as hot or cold regions within the oven and can thus locate the low-energy regions. If the ant is in a high-field region, its small size allows it to cool down more quickly than a larger object while it searches for a cold spot.

I'm awake now...LOL Just think all this from messing around at work with a insitu microwave photoresist strip for a plasma etch process to stop the AlCu metal lines from coroding from the Cl in the plasma chemistry.

Come on Paddy give us some more!!!!!!!

[Chris B]

dZeus is on to something with the water there!

Ants have very little water in their body wich gives them a little advantage. What also happens is that when ants are exposed to the microwaves, they will get very uncomfortable and try to get away.

So they run around the oven, and all of a sudden they find a "dead spot". Microwave ovens have dead spots where there is no/little "radiation" (this is what causes those annoying cold pockets in cooked foods)

And the small amount of water in their body buys them a little time to find these dead spots!

Hmmmm... guess ALBPM slided that one in while i was writing this

[This message has been edited by Chris B (edited 29 September 2000).]

[Paddy]

Ahem:

This coast is one of the most tectonically active in onshore Britain and lies parallel to the Mochras Fault, which separates the Cambrian rocks of the Harlech Dome from the Tertiary rocks of Tremadog Bay Basin.

We don't know the exact cause of the flames and exhalations, but together with these accounts and those of similar phenomena nearby, most notably some written in the 16th century, we can limit the possibilities. None of the accounts was written by eyewitnesses and the cattle poisoning was said to have occurred before the fires in the original account, but still may be connected.

The possibilities are triboluminescence (light caused by friction between rocks along the Mochras Fault), sonoluminescence (produced by ultra-high frequency sounds in some organic liquids) and chemiluminescence. The latter is responsible for the will-o'- the-wisp phenomenon in marshes where decaying organic matter can produce methane (CH4) and phosphane (PH3). If diphosphane (P2H4), which is often present in phosphane as an impurity, reacts spontaneously with air it could ignite the methane to create a weak blue flame.

Sediments accumulating offshore in Tremadog Bay Basin may have supplied clouds of phosphane and methane gas, periodically over eight months, poisoning grass and setting fire to hay stacks and houses. Most accounts specify that the flames were seen near the location of the Mochras Fault, which does suggest that the Tremadog Bay sediments were responsible, with the fault acting as a pathway upwards from buried sediments in the basin to the west. The recent discovery of what appears to be an oil seep in this area, and very near the Mochras Fault, backs this view. Fiery manifestations such as these fuelled the superstition of people in this remote area, to whom will-o'-the-wisp was better known as cannwyll gorff (corpse candle).

[Dilitante1]

OK...

Paddy, if you have newspaper accounts lying around from 1790 or so, logic would dictate you are OLD and you should have WAY more posts than this shouldn't you?

How's that for a question?

[This message has been edited by Dilitante1 (edited 30 September 2000).]

[Jorden]

No Way, Al.

He's just been busy with his attic I guess. Here in Holland they used old newspapers as insulation, before oil was found

Guess they did the same in the UK. And their newspapers are bigger

Jord.

[Paddy]

er.. actually I just searched the New Scientist archives

Was that cheating?

Besides many of us have posted a lot more than what is displayed!

[ALBPM]

COOL!!! Maybe a bit too much Ergot in the bread helped too...LOL


Paul

[Paddy]

LOL!

So anybody else got a question?