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Microwave Experiments Cause Sponge Disasters
gollum123 writes "Reports about a study that found microwave ovens can be used to sterilize kitchen sponges sent people hurrying to test the idea this week — with sometimes disastrous results. A team at the University of Florida found that two minutes in the microwave at full power could kill a range of bacteria, viruses and parasites on kitchen sponges. They described how they soaked the sponges in wastewater and then zapped them. But several experimenters evidently left out the crucial step of wetting the sponge. "Just wanted you to know that your article on microwaving sponges and scrubbers aroused my interest. However, when I put my sponge/scrubber into the microwave, it caught fire, smoked up the house, ruined my microwave, and pissed me off," one correspondent wrote in an e-mail to Reuters."
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...for while, in the case of the bacteria, only the strong will survive, there is no corresponding negative feedback mechanism to remove those people (and I use that term loosely) from the gene pool that microwave dry sponges and complain that they should have been warned about the terrible, terrible consequences.
Wankers.
And this qualifies as a story? Next up, NEWS FLASH: People are stupid!
I tried to use the technique to sterilize the cat, and that did not work very well either!
How else did they expect it to work? Of course you need the god-damn water in the sponge. Microwaves have a wave length measured in the centimetre. The size of a bacterial spore is a couple of orders of magnitude smaller The size of a bateria is a lot smaller than this again.
This means that if you wanted to destroy the blighters with radiation alone you have to choose a frequency a lot higher than microwaves, otherwise there will be areas in the minima of the standing wave that won't heat sufficently to kill the microbes.
The mechanism for steralisation is through the formation of steam that kills the majority of the nasties - not the microwave energy itself.
Simon
However, when I put my sponge/scrubber into the microwave, it caught fire, smoked up the house, ruined my microwave, and pissed me off,
He wasn't using one of those Sony battery-operated microwaves, was he?
Push Button, Receive Bacon
The microwave steralizes the wet sponge because it makes the water hot enough to kill anything living. The same effect can be had by dunking the sponge in a pot of boiling water.
... and in the DRM, bind them.
People do not understand microwaves. Berating them for not using their understanding of microwaves is like watching a Spiderman movie and saying "Why doesn't he just fly out of there?"
Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away.
If the sponge caugth fire, the microbes are probably dead by now. Right?
holding your breath underwater for 5 minutes cures stupidity. I take full responsibility for all results of home trials.
Lots of smoke? Smells like burning tires? Really pissed off? These people sound like Linux users trying to get their sound cards to work.
Putting the sponge on fire killed the bacteria, viruses and parasites on the sponge, right?
So why did he complain? I mean, many items do actually smoke when they're set on fire...
From a darwinistic point of view, it would seam desirable that stupidity should kill (or sterilize, at least). I, however, have come the the conclusion that I'll need some stupid people around me to take care of some things. So I'll just be fine if stupid people identify themself as such from time to time.
People trying an experiment involving using the microwave at full power can get into trouble!
At least they didn't try to dry their dogs and cats.
--
Superb hosting 200GB Storage, 2_TB_ bandwidth, php, mysql, ssh, $7.95
Prepare for a Class Action Suit filed against Reuters, the Scientists who did this and news papers that carried it for the damages caused by the fires.
Out of the $100 million that will be awarded, $80 million will go the lawyers, $10 million towards court fees, etc., and the class action plaintiffs awarded a $15 coupon each that can be redeemed for a Microwave at Wal-mart.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
Irradiating sponges is ok but OMG, don't do it to beef!
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
There's this method of execution shown in Tom Hanks' 'The Green Mile' in which the guy to be electrocuted is seated in the chair and a wet sponge must be placed on top of his head. Some guy (Percy) with sadistic intentions 'forgets' to do this and the poor convict burns to death in the chair.
Forgive me if its off-topic, but you can learn a lot from the movies...
A sponge will be very very hot after 2 minutes at full power.
Next.. who will post this dry sponge on youtube/google video. please? anyone? Or just a good video what else fun you can d with a microwave:
-Light up a lamp.
-erase your CD. (extra points for CD-RW discs, bonus for AOL disks)
-Make it explode. mythbuster style... 8))
KIDS... don't do this at home.... (use the microwave of someone else )
Back in good old days, many centuries ago, there wasn't any kind of this Politically Correct stuff and neither was there protection of the idiots. There was one rule: survival of the fittest.
If you made mistakes dumb enough to kill you , you didn't get anybody to pull you out and nature did its thing and eliminated the "idiot's" gene.
Of course this had nothing to do with real accidents, but in the long term idiots would dissapear.
Nowadays there is no personal responsibility. People do their own mistakes and blame it on somebody else.
This idiot should have had at least his genitals burned so we wouldn't have anymore kids.
Mind you, I am all about protecting and subsidising the weakest, the handicapped, the sick and al. I just believe that dumb people that bring it upon themselves deserve no attention and no compassion whatsoever.
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity
We Americans measure our bacteria as fractions of an inch so the sponge fires were no doubt caused when people, in their germ kill potential calculations, screwed up while converting centimeter length microwaves to inches. Honest mistake.
...for the Darwin Awards
...but definitely stupid
Sponges...............$1
Microwave.............$60
Reading the article...Free
Burning down your house because you didn't read the whole article.....NOT Priceless
- Nobody would know what RTFA meant if it didn't need to be said all the time
of course, those of us with children and bottle sterlisers know that placing water and objects in a microwave leads to the steam cleaning them... "well duh" was my reaction when i saw this "news" item yesterday....
Perhaps if you can't follow all the instructions there are some things you really shouldn't be doing.
Mind you, I am all about protecting and subsidising the weakest, the handicapped, the sick and al.
I think Al would be hurt if he found out you categorized him that way.
Fnord.
... how else did _you_ expect it to work?
A simple question for you: water molecules, are they larger or smaller than the bacteria and spores to be killed?
Last time I've checked, the wavelength used in the microwave is about 12.5 cm. Sure, the bacteria are much smaller than that, but is it at all relevant?
KnightTristan
... i hope he sticks his fucking head in and rids us of his stupidity.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Just a few months ago my friend put a bag of microwaveable popcorn into the microwave and left it for a few minutes. He came back and the microwave was smoking and the bag was on fire. Apparently the butter and kernels stuck together and burned. The apartment smelled for about 2 weeks (we could only open the windows a little at a time -- Canadian winter) and the microwave was ruined.
I think it's pretty funny that people tried this without wetting the sponge, however, I know many people that do not realize the nuances of how a microwave actually works.
Anyone ever see "Idiocracy"?
www.isoHunt.com
Some people put a dry synthetic object in the microwave on high for two minutes?
I don't think it's just the sponges that need sterilization...
> Answer truthfully (yes or no) to the following
> question: Will the next word you say be no?
This sentence I'm saying (writing) now is false.
They had this on the BBC yesterday too, I think in the morning they had suggested everyone microwave their sponges and then in the evening news they had a man with a ginger mustache from ROSPA who said that he wouldn't advise microwaving sponges because there is no setting on microwaves for sponges and that he for one didn't have the faintest idea what would happen if you did microwave a sponge except that whatever it was which happened would probably be unsafe and might cause an accident.
I found it very reassuring that ROSPA ( Royal Society For The Prevention Of Accidents ) does its research so thoroughly before making announcements.
... but maybe some of the people didn't read the article :-)
I'm pretty sure Weird Al Yankovick won't mind. I think he fits the category like a charm.
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity
Oh, but you say, taking things as fact without questioning why is a folly committed only by stupid people, thus making them ignorant. The two are really the same. I would then ask you why light is both a particle and a wave and why electrons jump to a different energy level when hit by the right frequencey of light. There's probably less than 1,000 people on the planet who can give a good answer to these questions, and unless you're one of them, you've committed the same folly as your average suburban mom - you still don't truly know why a microwave works.
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
Than boiling the sponge in a saucepan? I'd have though putting it in boiling water for a couple of minutes should probably destroy most bacteria.
and what type of spider?
Will i really be able to fly after that?
I'll let your guess.
Dumbass.
IMHO a better way to sterilise a sponge is as follows:
Reduce, reuse, cycle
after putting my spunge in the microwave, it now tastes like burnt chicken.
Ask yourself: who wants to have sex with someone who burns sponges in his microwave?
Yes, I am the one with the legendary sig.
Recessive dominant genes?
Stupid genes (or others) never dissapear until they have been dissemenated enough so that both parents have the gene. Which then expresses itself.
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity
I suspect we have a potential entry for the 2007 Darwin Awards.
--- This meme is memory intensive
OK, so how do you explain why there are (apparently) so many of them? Nature has had millions of years to do its thing, right? And by the way, can you explain why my wife doesn't look like Rachel Welch?
One exceptional feature of a microwave is that it will keep heating at full effect no matter how hot the target gets. The only limit how you design your target.
d omestic-microwave-oven/
You can for example melt and cast most metals:
http://net127.com/2005/01/24/melting-metals-in-a-
With some research, you may even be able to use your kitchen microwave to generate some fusion reactions.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
Use a UV bactericide/germicide tube, they exist since stone age for this purpose, are much cheaper than microwave ovens, consume much less energy and if properly screened are completely safe.
If you want to build one, all materials (lamp, ballast, sockets etc.) can be purchased for a few bucks. Just be very careful to be never exposed to it directly while it's on, even for a second, because it's dangerous for skin and eyes. Put it in a solid UV proof box with a switch that cuts the power when the cover is open. In case of any doubt, ask to a skilled electronics geek: UV tubes at different wavelengths are commonly used to make printed circuit boards or to erase eprom based memories/microcontrollers.
When I was in college, someone took one of my coffee mugs, filled it up with Hershey's chocolate syrup, and put it in the microwave for 90 minutes. Then they left. As best as we can tell, the syrup first boiled over and filled up the bottom of the microwave. Eventually it hardened into a black crust and caught fire. That's when the fire alarm woke us up, you know -- it was three o'clock in the morning.
The microwave was ruined, and there was some damage to the cabinet. And I lost my favorite coffee mug too. But it's probably the best use for Hershey's chocolate syrup that I could think of (since it's pretty awful stuff).
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
People read the original article and played dumb for a bit, temporarily throwing out conventional wisdom regarding non-food objects in the microwave as they followed Reuter's authoritative instructions.
But, hey, this is slashdot and people don't play, rather, they are dumb, and we all have a good laugh at their misfortune while we're glad it was somebody else who ruined their microwave and not us.
And yes, I did make a whole bunch of toxic smoke years ago by forgetting to put the bowl of water while nuking a CD.
"[T]he single essential element on which all discoveries will be dependent is human freedom." -- Barry Goldwater
There are really intelligent folks around.
*ducks*
w00t
The average IQ on a fixed scale has been increasing with about 3 point per decade in the period from IQ tests were introduced until around ten years ago. Since the IQ scale is defines so 100 is the average, this means that the scale has had to be renormalized periodically.
Thus, evolution does not seem to have had a bad effect in IQ for that period (which is probably too short for evolution to be a factor anyway).
-Al
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
Intelligence (or the develoment of) could be more related to social or monetary issues.
Ah, but rich parents typically bear rich kids (trust funds, inheritance, better opportunities, better educations leading to better paying jobs, etc.) and poor parents typically do not offspring that go on to make millions. Rags to riches (or riches to rags) *can* happen, but neither is commonplace. Similarly, kids do tend to reflect their parents' religion, social standing, morality, etc.
Don't assume that enviromental variables aren't inheritable. In most cases, I don't think that genetic predisposition can hold a candle to environmental predisposition. If Einstein was born to a family living in the slums (instead of an upper-middle class family), do you think he would have still come up Special Relativity? How nice it would be to pretend that he would; yet, it would be utterly naive to suppose that even an individual of Einstein's calibur could have completely overcome his environment, somehow educated himself, and then somehow pursued the academic community to listen to these crackpot "time dilation" theories coming from a man who could not afford a decent suit, let alone college.
Depending on your definition of "a good answer" there are either a good many more than that, or none at all. And given the controversy surrounding String Theory, I dare say that the likely candidates would disagree as to which thousand actually have a good answer:
Some facts.
1.Not holding your breath under water would be stupid.
2.Some people can hold their breaths under water for more than 5 minutes. Look up free-diving for instance.
3.Taking responsibility for stupidy is... well.. you know...
Most people are stupid. Why is this surprising?
~Any apparent grammatical or typographic errors are caused by defects in your display device.
Well, actually, I got a sneak preview of the next Jean M Auel book. You will recall that Ayla has already invented flint and steel for making fire, horse riding, needles and dogs, and Jondalar has invented guns. In this new book, Jondalar invents Rock and Roll (but Ayla gets jealous and smashes his instrument when he starts "sharing Pleasures" with groupies) and Ayla invents the Courts and becomes the first lawyer. She successfully prosecutes the First Cave of the Lanzadonii for breach of patent when they start sewing with needles, and later goes on to represent a woman who cuts herself on a flint knife which was not properly labelled as sharp. Later in the book, she nearly loses a case brought by the S'Armunai Wolf Women, but the case turns around when she calls one of Jondalar's exes from the Sharamudoi as a surprise witness.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
The relative poor Eastern Europe has much lower fertility rate than the rich Western Europe, despite a similar culture and similar (high) level of education. Even the very poor North Korea has fertility rate of only 1.9 children per woman. This seem to indicate a different cause is more likely.
In the countries with high fertility, children tend to be (or, until recently have been) responsible for the care of their parent in their old age. Having many children is therefore a way to ensure your comfort at an old age. In the welfare states of Western Europe, the state tend to take over that responsibility from the children. And in the communist states, the responsibility lies with the state to an even higher degree. This can explain why long time communist states have very low fertility rates, and why stable welfare states also have low fertility rates.
For capitalist countries with less well developed welfare systems, rich and well educated people will tend to set up other provisions (funds) to ensure their economic independence in their old age, and thus also be less depend on children for their pension. This explain the effect you see.
Anyone who convinces the stupid to sterilize themselves or remove themselves from the gene pool through other means certainly deserves our hearty congratulations.
It's worrying that people don't know how microwaves work.
But it's even more worrying that people here on Slashdot are seriously promoting eugenics.
You'd think that the Nazis would have made it unfashionable.
from TFA: "Two minutes in the microwave can kill many germs on kitchen sponges, but the sponges have to be WET."
I wanted to sterilize my sponge but I didn't know what WET stood for. According to Wikipedia, it could be either Western European Time, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, Wuest Expanded Translation (a translation of the New Testament by Kenneth Wuest) or WET Web Tester, an automated web testing tool. I assume that my sponge is none of the last three, so how do I change the time zone setting of my microwave?
"Wet before nuking".
-- Chaos, panic, pandemonium... My job here is done!
Like all crackpots who complain about things, the microwave accident is just a trigger event for an underlying psychosis.
It's obvious to any reader of "Monthly Sicko"(tm) that the guy's been repressing a deep persecution complez, ever since he lost his job on The Green Mile.
The sponge should be definitely dry and then only 10 seconds in micro oven are enough.
I am surprised that the CNN personnel is so ignorant to not know this. They suggest the method which requires times more energy for sterilization.
No surprise that those guys need so much energy from abroad being that ignorant.
Most people desire a minimum level of material comfort, and money is fundamental for that. Therefore, even if intelligence comes from genetic factors, inteligent people will be relatively well from a monetary point of view. A person with a "smart gene" mutation would find a way to get rich even if born in a poor family.
I think it's most probable that both nature and nurture affect intelligence, one is the hardware and the other is the software, it's reasonable to expect that both factors will have an influence. But you cannot prove that by correlation alone.
LOL you are such a noob! Everyone knows the three things you should never put in the microwave: dry sponges, tin foil, and babies! Duh!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons
Also the U.K http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6293735.stm , and we had two cities in the 'Most Intelligent' list....
How many people are wiping their ass with their sponge in the first place?
Is everyone proud? We just witnessed the future birth of a warning label that when applied will make people say, "Why the hell would you have that on a warning label for a sponge?"
Once again, we see that P.T. Barnum was correct...a sucker born every day. And apparently a lot of them have microwave ovens.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
A better example would be people who think diplomacy will work with homicidal maniacs bent on our destruction.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Because microwave ovens work best by vibrating water molecules. As they vibrate friction causes them to turn to steam which is what sterilizes the sponge in the first place.
Newsflash. Stupidity is NOT genetic. Intelligence may have some genetic links, but what you call "stupid" is people acting on incomplete or incorrect information, which is what we do EVERY DAY OF OUR LIVES.
A New God Damn Sponge
Nothing witty
Let this be a lesson! This is what happens when you don't RTFA!
Adidas To Bring Back Sneakernet
I'm agree with you
Five minutes isn't impossible at all. The Austrian free-diver Herbert Nitsch can hold his breath for more than 9 minutes.
...we have no sponges.
You should watch the movie "Idiocracy". It is written by Mike Judge, who also wrote "Office Space". It is not that good, but it is still fun, and raises a couple of points :)
IMDB Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/
--Coder
#1: survival of the fittest selects not only against lack of intelligence, but also against lack of things like penicillin. if you are such a firm believer in survival of the fittest without any artificial aid from your fellow human beings, the next time you get a deep gash, don't stich it, don't bandage it, and when the sepsis sets in, no antibiotis whatsoever. die shivering and hallucinating as your organs shut down happy that you are fulfilling natural selection
#2: survival of the fittest selects in favor of not only intelligence, but also in favor of communication. in other words, if you are about to walk into the path of a crouching mountain lion in the brush, and ogg says "stop", saving your life, nature selects for that ability: effective communication and social organization. an individual bee by itself is a dead in a day or two. a hive of bees will thrive and kill animals ten times the entire colony's size. effective social organization is a survival advantage, and by living in a community of humans where each specializes in a different ability and knowledge set, your ability to survive goes up by orders of magnitude. no one man knows everything, and anyone who thinks they do, or thinks they should, is probably demonstrating a profound ignorance of the value of communication as a survival advantage. and as a maladapted asocial loner, they should probably be selected against for an inferior set of genes
so your entire point about survival and "intelligence" is right... but only when considering your points and reversing them 180 degrees
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
>>>Back in good old days, many centuries ago, there wasn't any kind of this Politically Correct stuff and neither was there protection of the idiots. There was one rule: survival of the fittest....
Yes, you just hogtied people to a stone, and threw them in the lake. The ones that sank drowned, and the ones that did not survived.
Or you made them walk on burning coal. The ones that got burnmarks were killed, and the ones that did not could live.
This is called survival of the fittest.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
Wet sponge before microwaving.
Do not leave in microwave unattended.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
10 percent solution works wonders.
Get up!
I don't know if anyone realizes this, but you can accomplish the same thing by boiling it in water for 10 minutes. All the microwave is doing is supplying a different heat source to boil the water trapped in the sponge. You could also go out and buy yourself an autoclave if you really want to be fanatical about it.
When I first heard the experiment, I was thinking, "Finally! Eileen does not have hoard her sponges and search for sponge-worthy men!" Just zap and reuse! But these disasters are more Krameresque than Eileeny.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Please, stupid people don't need protection. They need to be isolated and studied so it can be determined what nutrients they have that might be extracted for our personal use.
buff3r
There are bigger threats than germs in kitchen sponges. Once you are done nuking sponges, you better mod your TV to stop the government from spying on you, too.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
Primates (with a few notable exceptions) are group animals and enjoy a rich political and social life and all that that implies. Individuals co-operate as well as compete and the slow and the weak are helped and assisted. If you made mistakes dumb enough to kill you , you might indeed have someone on hand to pull you out. Survival of the fittest just doesn't cover it. Political correctness is neither here nor there.
Evolution doesn't necessarily select for intelligence or against stupidity. Even very highly intelligent people can make stupid mistakes and under some conditions stupidity is an evolutionary advantage.
In that case, the "fittest" were the ones who, upon seeing someone approaching with rope and stones, got the fsck out of town.
I think that's why shoes were invented.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
I had read one of the papers on microwaving your sponges, and since our house was enjoying a bit of a mouse-poop-on-the-counter problem at the time, I figured microzapping the bacteria couldn't hurt. Unfortunately it was an old microwave and there was no "quick minute" button, so in a hurry, I inadvertently set it for 20:00 minutes instead of 2:00. Maybe ten minutes later my housemate says, "my god what is that awful smell," and I run into the kitchen to find the sponge on fire and the microwave still dutifully cooking it. The smell lasted at least a week, and I threw away the microwave. So here's a question...I'm a little hazy on the concept, but microwaves heat stuff by exciting water molecules. Once the water molecules had evaporated what did it heat in the sponge that caused it to catch fire?
"I can see it now, billboards with signs saying: "a microwave is a great way to get a tan," "a blowtorch is a great way to thaw frozen pipes," and of course "it is cool to operate power tools--in the nude! Buy Budweiser!""
A small amount of humour is a dangerous thing.
Are all those claiming that this is Darwinism in action serious? I have no problem with tasteless *jokes*, but what really scares me is that I get the feeling that some of these commenters are really saying that "stupid" people don't deserve to live. Am I wrong that that sets morality back, um, thousands of years? I will say no more lest I activate Godwin's Law.
About 6 months ago I wanted to find out how to clean the odor off my kitchen sponge so I could reuse it without it stinking. Several websites gave the tip to wet it, then nuke it for a minute. I tried it and it worked GREAT!!! Been doing it for the past 6 months. The first time I tried it, it got very hot, so I never went past a minute and I never put it in DRY! (doh)
The only thing that's new is people burning their house down (or making the attempt anyways)
From the FAQ:
"Note that being moderated Funny doesn't help your karma."
Thus the reason that people will mod a Funny post Informative.
SYS 64738
...if my kitchen is even "Spongeworthy".
That's true, to a point. However, if the weaker, slower members pull the whole group down, the group might not survive. A group of primates who just lost their Alpha Male because he died after rescuing little BoBo from a leopard, might get whooped by another group of primimates.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
This sounds remarkably like the urban legend about the aircraft company firing chickens at their windshields only to realize that they weren't supposed to be frozen. In any case, Darwin is written all over this one. If you don't have the mental wherewithal to figure out that (dry sponge) + (lengthy microwave session) = (fire & smoking ruin of microwave)...oh well.
Perhaps more interesting would be to ask the question of these thermodynamically-challenge folk, "What nasty crud having you been wiping down with that $0.29 sponge that makes you feel compelled to sterilize it with a microwave rather than just using cleanser and hot water like the majority of sane people?" For that matter, if you believed your sponge to be that contaminated with bacteria, wouldn't you just -huh, huh- ***throw it away***?
As to confirm my complaint I just see a blurp on the RSS feed of my paper about the/a British Fire Chief warning for putting sponges in the microwave.
Again without any reference or explanation why it's a bad idea.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Hate to feed a troll but:
IQ is the most weakly correlated with breeding of the features you mention. The wealth, education and class levels of people are very strongly correlated, but it is not even remotely clear that this is more than the common effect of security on progeny numbers seen in many fish, mammals and birds.
The phenomenon is that many critters have *more* children which they care for poorly when they are low on resources or under stress. The assumption we like to make is that the critter is estimating the survivability of it's kids low, and thus going buckshot rather than sniper since it is dark (low chance of success).
Of course if there are so few resources that the critter can't even create kids eg: starving, then that will dominate and fewer kids will be expected again.
Sorry, viruses do not contain "a tiny amount of water". Bacteria, of course, do contain water within their cell walls, but they are small enough that most of the microwaves will miss them. That's why you can't kill ants or flies in your microwave. Also see http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=26 5489
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
You imply that you are part of the 0.000001% of the population you've identified as being capable of answering your question, but anyone expecting the average Joe to have the faintest idea how a 65 year-old nearly ubiquitous kitchen appliance functions is an arrogant asshole?
You've got some serious chutzpah...
"Yes, you just hogtied people to a stone, and threw them in the lake. The ones that sank drowned, and the ones that did not survived."
Actually, the ones that survived were burned for being witches. After all, how else could they survive? Talk about a shitty test.
You apparently do not know what you are talking about. Check wikipedia: the heat is generated by the rotation of watermolecules who are aligned by the waves. FYI: watermolecules are smaller than 120 mm, and smaller than bacteria, and they only *rotate*. They have nothing to do with something in the range of 120mm. The bacteria contain more than enough water themselves to get cooked. Wetting the sponge is a waste of energy.
Actually, i put my cycling clothes once every 1 - 2 weeks into a microwave. I have a recumbent, so the back part of my shirts and trousers get a distinguishable smell after a while. Since they can't be washed hot or ironed, i want to kill off the bacteria in a cool way. So first i make sure they are completely dry, the only water in it is in the bacteria. I do this to prevent high temperatures. Then i put them into the microwave (an old one, not sure how powerful it is) for five minutes at full power. After that, they are warm, but not hot and defenitly not burnt. Then i wash them at 30 Celsius and all the smell is gone.
Trust me, I work for the government.
...the sponge microwaves you!
Of course, "in the good old days" most people who could not start a fire, ride a horse, milk a cow, kill and gut an animal, grow food, cook meals, sew clothing, wield a weapon, etc. were all likely to be considered idiots. At least if they were over the age of 13 or so.
So it's good thing that all the superior minds who vaguely understand microwaves and post on Slashdot have mastered that list of basic knowledge so thoroughly. Wouldn't want to burn off anyone's genitals by mistake!
after the value of social networking and communication is appreciated, then you begin to open the door for individual concerns and rights to get abused. if the value of the hierarchy or organization overrules the value of the individual, then individuals rights begin to decrease
your lament over idiots who fail to take accountability for their actions doesn't consider the opposite: where blaming the individual is enforced in such a way that organizations, the government, large corporations, etc., can get away with nurder instead. you have to err in a certain direction: on the side of the group, or the side of the individual. if you side with the group, justice will caution on the side of heartless and cruel organizations, and you will horror stories of individual rights getting crushed. if you side with the individual, justice will caution on the side of idiots without a sense of responsibility, and you will hear horror stories of morons getting millions for spilling coffee
in other words, when examined in a vacuum, your horror stories of lack of personal accountability are awful. but when your stories are examined in context, in reality, where we are given a choice between two negative situations: erring on the individual or erring on the group, your stories aren't so bad. i'd rather hear about the idiot getting millions for spilling coffee than the toxic waste dumper getting away with poisoning neighborhoods
you can't err on the side of individual rights and on the side of large organizations at the same time, you can't practice justice without making errors, and you have to expect one type of horror story or the other type no matter which way you err. in this way, when looking at your horror stories of lack of personal accountability outside of a vacuum, they don't sound so bad. because you appreciate the fact that limiting individual rights because of a lack of personal accountability means that large companies and the government begin to get away with murder instead of individual morons
i'd rather have grandma get millions for spilling coffee instead. when you see things that way, your issue with idiots without a sense of responsibility isn't so bad
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If you choose to read an article on the internet and choose to do something stupid like put an object into something you consider a black box and see what happens, YOU are personally responsible for the result of the act you have chosen to perform. Just because you are a moron doesn't make you any less responsible. Your perspective is the equivalent of thinking that hugging a tree will somehow save it from the elements in which it exists. Both are flawed. Ignorance itself may != stupidity but acting on said ignorance does. An ignorant fool is still an ignorant fool.
Armaments, 2-9-21 And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, 'O Lord, bless this Thy hand grenade' N
In college I lived in a cooperative house where 50 of us shared a big industrial kitchen. Todd, a guy I was friendly with, walked in with a hot dog wrapped in foil-backed paper. He said, I can put this in the microwave, right? And I'm thinking "Um, you never heated a hot dog in the microwave? That's what they're best at!" It did not occur to me that he meant, including the foil-backed paper. Who doesn't know you can't put foil in the microwave?
So he stuck it in there and pop! the paper explodes in flame. I yelled "what are you doing!?" and he said "you said it would be fine!"
I guess in a way this was my first experience in tech support: you can never be too clear.
How else did they expect it to work? Of course you need the god-damn water in the sponge. Microwaves have a wave length measured in the centimetre. The size of a bacterial spore is a couple of orders of magnitude smaller The size of a bateria is a lot smaller than this again.
...Or maybe someone who feels superior to "the masses" need to really review the concept of dielectric heating.
So, are you suggesting that any body shorter than the wavelength of microwave radiation (12 cm) will be left unheated? Neat! That must be why my pizza rolls are still frozen when I get them out.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
And no, I had not planned on wetting the sponge. I was wondering "Isn't this going to burn the sponge?" but I was going to do it anyway. The main problem is that the article I read said that the water was the reason why the bacteria loved the sponge but did not mention that the scientists tried it with a wet sponge. This encouraged the mistake people made. It was a poorly written article.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I think this was covered before: U.S. Cities Don't Make the Intelligence Cut
Great, a social Darwinist. No, evolution is *not* about making enough mistakes to kill yourself, it is about sucessfully passing on your genetic material before your mistakes kill you. This being the case, with ideas like yours, you will never get the chance to pass on your genetic material.
"I didn't know the sponge was supposed to be wet."
Anybody remember the scene in this movie?
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Why not just put your sponges in a pot of boiling water for two minutes and skip all the exploding parts? It even works on metal scouring pads.
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
Worse than you thought I know, but it's true.
Dr. Raymond Stantz: I was present at an undersea unexplained mass sponge migration.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Uhh, Ray, the sponges migrated about a foot-and-a-half.
Obviously they wet the sponge when they SOAKED (!!!) it in waste water. Do you really have to specify that the sponge should be wet right after you have said it has been soaked in water??? The idiot that ruined his microwave is probably related & married to the woman who sued McDonalds because the cup didn't say it was hot... FUCKING RETARDS!
According to the article, now they have to warn people that the sponge will be hot when it comes out of the microwave. If you weren't expecting that already please place your microwave on the curb for pickup. Thank you.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Please get an education. You did something ignorant that a first year physics student (as well as a first year cooking student) generally knows not to do. Bye now.
"The Devil does not know a lot because He's the Devil, He knows a lot because he's old." -- unknown
my karma will hurt after this post. [...]And so I say "farewell to karma..."
People who try to apply reverse-psychology on moderators should be treated with -1, Provocation.
"Let my guess :-) - This happen in USA?"
_ dishes_with_Here_s_how_to_sanitize_it
No, it happen in DIGG.
http://digg.com/health/Know_that_sponge_you_clean
FTA: But several experimenters evidently left out the crucial step of wetting the sponge.
Your Comment: This was not mentioned at all in the original Reuters article to begin with, but all other details (how long, power setting) were included.
From the ORIGINAL Article: "...they soaked sponges and scrubbing pads in raw wastewater..." (fourth paragraph). Seems to me that the Reuters article stated this step quite clearly.
If one lacks the judgment to realize that putting a sponge in the microwave without water is going to burn it then their experience should be their lesson. Lazy-ass people. Stop blindly following every silly little thing you read and take some responsibility for your own stupidity rather than whining that someone else 'told you to do it.' I seem to remember my mother teaching me the 'if your friends told you to jump off a bridge...' lesson when I was freakin' five years old.
I am Jack's smirking revenge.
I knew the moment that article came out that some one would be stupid enough to try that. This country is way to sue happy. I glad they ruined there microwave for being so stupid. If you read the article it says that the sponges were wet. IDIOT
... lighting yourself on fire can ensure that you don't ever have to worry about germs again. Your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited by law. Flames may not be as pictured. Self-immolation should not be attempted by children, pets, people with allergies, or others who may be disturbed by screaming (particularly their own). Always consult your family physician before lighting anyone on fire.
Life needs more saving throws.
eom
*Shrugs* I don't know, out of all the misuses of such phrases, at least "and" and "et" mean the same thing. Give him some slack, at least he didn't use "ecetera"...
The original story said it took between 4 and 10 min at full power to kill all the spores in the sponge. What kind of life can survive 10 min in a full sized microwave! Incredible!
When I put my gold ring into the microwave, it caught fire, smoked up the house, ruined my microwave, and pissed me off!
I wish I had mod points to mod you up, but alas... In any case, I concur... the original article clearly says they were using sponges that had been soaked in wastewater.
Microwave Experiments Cause Spooge Disasters
...haven't any of these people seen "Green Mile"? You always wet the sponge. Always.
The weird things isn't that people forgot to wet the sponge so it wouldn't catch on fire...
The weird thing is that people are so afraid of bacteria that they are going be microwaving their sponges!! Not only that, I see they sell anti-bacteria material sponges pre-made at the store... and anti-bacterial soap... and anti-bacterial air-sprays (don't worry about lung cancer from breathing that crap!). Anti-bacterial teething rings... anti-bacterial towels... anti-bacterial shaving cream...
When did people get paranoid about bacteria all of a sudden? You gotta admit, bacteria isn't a significant problem for most people in the industrialized world, even without all the extreme anti bacteria tactics people are using.
I gave up on sponges. Even in Colorado, they get stinky in a week or two. Now I use a vegetable brush: it doesn't reek, it's dishwasher-safe, and it cleans dishes better.
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
Of course, *every* human being is an idiotic or dumb at some random instant in time... the trick is not to be dumb "in front a tiger".
> sent people hurrying to test the idea this week
Sounds like a heard of sheep. Do they blindly rush out to test every idea like that? You'd think the cloud of evaporated urine, Lysol, grease, and Ramen created by heating it would be more harmful than rinsing it.
The same effect can be had by dunking the sponge in a pot of boiling water.
So? The same effect of my driving to work can be had by my walking to work. I'm not going to do it. Most people have 2 minutes, water and a microwave. I not willing to put in the time required to boil water nor the desire to stand over the pot using some other utensil to keep the sponge under the point water. Another comment from somebody that can't see outside of their own ass.
steel wool in the microwave!!!
Yes Benji, it comes from iron sheep.
While you are testing out all the theories in this tread, try Peeps (you know those disgusting marshmallow candies that you still have in your closet 2 years after Halloween re-located them from the store shelf to your shelf). They are great fun to watch in the microwave -- try it and see. And no, they won't light everything on fire.
Granted that I know that microwaves heat up water, but the original article could be interpreted in several ways:
Saying they soaked the sponges could mean that they did that to contaminate them for the test, not necessarily as part of the microwaving procedure.
If the sponges are not wet, they should not get hot, since microwaves only heat up water.
If I was going to try this, I might put a dry sponge in the microwave, along with a bowl of water (since not having any water can damage the microwave). They didn't get into the mechanism, whether the heat kills the microbes, or if the microwaves themselves do something.
... am fucking sick of having to put up with stupid people every day.
The ones who are pushing their mental abilities to the limits when they tie their shoes in the morning.
(Not to mention those who require velcro.)
How soon can we be rewarded for giving Darwinism a helping hand?
What kind of response do such people expect to get back from an edifice?
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
SPOILER WARNING: That's part of the premise of the setup in Brave New World by Huxley. They tried making an island for all the people who were grown to be smart and let them loose. You might want to read it.
Dr. Dean Edel and Dr. Bill Wattenburg were the ones that were ones that were distributing this information at that time. This was news about 8 years old because my son is going turn 8 and I doing some research on the library and the net on cleaning sponges that he used to take a bath with and there one was about using hot steam to cook and kill most of the microbes the inside the sponge using a autoclave. However we don't have autoclaves so the next best thing is a microwave which can cook something from the inside. The important thing about microwaving sponges is that you need to make sure you have some water in the sponge so the microwaves can boil the water inside the sponge the make it to steam to kill the microbes inside the sponge. Like the warnings for all microwave products, you need to monitor the sponges so they don't dry out and then overheat and possibly catch on fire. The sponges need to be slightly damp. Also you can microwave women's underwear to kill yeast and other microbes that washer doesn't always kill.
Steaming a sponge in a most home "standard" boilers doesn't have pressure to get to the inside of the sponge to kill the microbes. Also when you attempt the "clean" with most household chemicals you really only clean the outside but it is the inside the sponge is where the microbes live.
I've been using the microwave to sterilize kitchen sponges for several years now.
And yes, the sponges are always wet. I've seen The Green Mile.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Ok, showing how dumb we can all be some times. I tried this after my son was born. We started sterilizing his bottles using a steamer in the microwave. Well, I figured it would be just as effective for sponges! Let's face it, those kitchen sponges get really smelly and nasty after a while - no matter what they say about "germicidal". Unfortunately, I also tried it w/ a not-completely-wet sponge. Damp won't do it, the thing has to be SOAKING wet. I put a damp one in there for 2 minutes - enough time to boil water - and burned a hole right through the middle of it. Now, thanks to HIGH-TECH RESEARCH (I'm embarrassed to say it's my alma mater) I know that if I soak the thing, it actually DOES kill the germs!
See, there's this cool thing we have in the English language called sarcasm. You should look it up some time.
The guy was making fun of the other guy's use of "let my guess" by saying "I'll let your guess." He was playing on the use on Engrish there. The parent you're referring to was what we would call a joke killer, like you. Seriously...how you missed the clear joke here is beyond me.
"Those who would sacrifice essential liberties for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - BenF
There's plenty of good jokes here about Darwinism, and some useful discussion about how to actually sterilize a sponge (boiling water, dishwasher, eliminating the sponge as a middleman and simply cleaning plates in the microwave, etc.), but what about the reasons for sterilizing the sponge in the first? Does it even make sense?
Remember, we're talking about a species that used eat stuff raw that had been sitting out in the sun for a couple hours, and beat it into edible sized pieces with sharp rocks. It's a species that still does eat stuff off the floor, picks its nose, and thinks nothing of touching computer keyboards or the handrail on city bus. And here we are worrying about ordinary household bacteria in a sponge that probably gets used in conjunction with some form of antibacterial detergent anyway.
Seriously, how many death certificates note "Cause of death: Scotch Brite scrubber sponge?" How much clinical evidence is there that disinfecting sponges increases longevity or improves your health?
At the same time, there is mounting evidence that moderate exposure (without overdoing it, of course) to microbes may bolster the immune system, and questions about whether antibacterial products might kill only the weakest pathogens, leaving no resource competition to stifle the growth of chemical-resistent bacterial strains.
Don't be paranoid. Most of the microbes out there never hurt anyone.
Every idiot knows how dangerous THAT is! :-)
Or let's put it another way: the more "advanced" a society gets the less applicable natural selection becomes. Why? Because societies in first world countries will try to safeguard its citizens against stupidity or any other "lack of fitness". Not only does it protect its citizens against natural hazards, such as wild animals, bad weather, famines etc. but it also strives to protect them from any new threats arising due to the new life style.
;) - A funny movie none the less.
The example in this case would be: guy hears about scientists sterilizing a sponge, guy rushes to the microwave in order to replicate the experiment, sponge catches fire, guy frantically jumps around in circles while microwave oven and room catches on fire, this sets off the fire alarm which in turn calls the firefighters, they extinguish the fire, guy sues everybody and their grandma, gets rich and procreates like mad..
We have basically neutralized effects of natural selection on us by assuring the survival and procreation of individuals that would be "less fit". Instead we are subjected mainly to genetic drift, the other effect that determines the gene pool of a population.
The movie Idiocracy actually takes it a step further and postulates that stupidity actually increases the "fitness" of an individual (i.e. a stupid individual is more likely to have children), thus a bunch of generations down the line we'll be living in an "idiocracy" such as the one depicted
And when you gaze long enough into the code, the code will also gaze into you.
I figured it was just a mistyped "and all." I was being playful, not malicious. :)
Fnord.
i Can't Believe this! Does nobody here remember the Green Mile?
I must be tired, but you actually made me laugh so much i cried...
Gotcha, I was just being "playfully defensive". ^.^;
In fact, there are no "directions" at all.
The researchers simply stated the procedure they used to perform their experiment, and the results thus obtained.
If you were to follow their "directions", you would soak the sponge in bacteria-laden wastewater prior to putting it in the microwave oven.
It is understandable that many people would want to skip that step.
That said, it is still surprising that people didn't wet their sponges, as the researchers indicated that it was probably the heated water, not the microwaves, that killed the bacteria.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
Yeah, but it WILL ruin a good screwdriver, so use a cheap, WELL_INSULATED one instead.
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
Ray: Of course you forget, Peter. I was present at an undersea, unexplained mass sponge migration.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.