Scientists finally explain why microwaved grapes emit glorious bursts of plasma

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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/02/18/try-this-at-home.html

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yeet
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Could this effect be used to detect microwave radiation leaking from the microwave oven? Like some sort of crude detector?

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Perhaps more effective:
Microwave Oven Diagnostics with Indian Snack Food

[How frustrating when onebox does not cooperate.]

See also:

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So were the microwaves destroyed as a direct result of this, or just because they did so many tests.? Asking for a friend.

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Heh heh, you said PNAS.

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One time I was microwaving two roughly golf-ball sized potatoes and got some spectacular arcing between them. I remember getting a similar, milder effect microwaving hot dogs. So it doesn’t have to be grapes. Probably any item the right size with enough electrolytes and water to conduct electricity would also work.

Writing about these items having water and electrolytes, I am reminded of the old demonstration that uses a potato as part of the battery in a potato-powered clock, and the somewhat more dangerous demonstration of cooking hot dogs by running household current through them.

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#Plasma Waves Are Cooking Electrons in Earth’s Magnetic Shield
https://www.space.com/space-plasma-electron-heating.html)

What we do have is an electric, scalable plasma universe. Gone are the days of pure Newtonian Celestial Dynamics. Say hello to the bright new future of Space Magnetoelectrohydrodynamics (MHD) and Solar Novas that can be near extinction level events.

We are now forced to reconsider the Electric formation of (486958) 2014 MU69 rather than the Standard Gravitional Model of accretion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/(486958)_2014_MU69

These are eciting times for the Parker Probe, The Grand Solar Minimum, The Weakening of the Geomagnetic Shield, The Wandering and Reversing Magnetic Poles And the ExLooming Extinction of most of Humanity. Why not follow The Thunderbolts Project, participate in Maverickstar Reloaded TRI-MAG Project, or Watch Ben Davidson’s Suspicious0bservers Earth Castrophe Cycles on YouTube. Listen to the Doug Vogt lectures. Listen to Wallace Thornhill, Randall Carlson, Graham Habcock. The Grape Demo is but a flavor of a taste on the subjects.

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Drunken fry-ups after office parties?

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I recall an office experience wherein bored co-workers would darken the office kitchen and microwave AOL CDs just to see the lightning. Fun and stinky.

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So, AOL CDs had a use after all…

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So, if you place two politicians close together in a microwave, would they emit plasma? I think we need to start experimenting.

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I knew someone who hung a hundred or so AOL CD’s in his cherry tree to keep the birds away from the fruit. It also cast a gazillion rainbows all over his yard.

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You can achieve the same effect with a pair of 1.25" long aluminum foil triangles arranged in a bow-tie shape, with a small air gap between them. This is a 1/4 wave dipole antenna, exactly like the one you used to use for UHF television reception. The grape or foil does the job of a receiving the 2.45 GHz radio waves from the magnetron. The gap makes a concentration of the electromagnetic field so that the air is able to break down to a plasma, much like a spark from static electricity.

Why it took some physicists to finally unravel this is what puzzles me. It’s pretty basic stuff for a radio engineer.

Disclaimer: I wear (and manufacture) a wristwatch that makes plasma in its Nixie tubes.

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Ah. Electric universe crackpottery!

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Next, use a microwave to construct a time machine and prevent WW3!!

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…and “skin bridge”.

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@doctorow Also covered nicely by: Veritasium

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Plasmatic Grapes as a band name might be a tight fit.

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