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Comment by OJFord | Hacker News Reader

That's not really such a caveat when it's a discovery of a natural phenomenon.

(And I assume subsequently discovering that these cells don't exhibit that behaviour in humans would be just as interesting to the field.)

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The microwave was originally invented to reanimate -- that is, bring back to life -- small frozen animals... and it worked. But, they soon discovered this would not work on humans primarily due to the size. In other words, size does matter. They eventually found another application for the microwave, which now sits in most kitchens.

The microwave was invented after a tech noticed a radar they were working on melting a candy bar in their pocket. It was initially aimed at food preparation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tdiKTSdE9Y

"A hamster is an acceptable size."

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.1956.005...

"Studies on golden hamsters during cooling to and rewarming from body temperatures below 0° C. III. Biophysical aspects and general discussion"

Both stories are true as the microwave oven was invented twice independently.

I'm pretty sure someone did experiments with a microwave trying to reanimate life but that was well after it was invented.

Here is an interview with the inventor of the microwave: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2tdiKTSdE9Y

Lovelock's version (for reanimating frozen hamsters) was almost certainly the first desktop version. The earlier commercial microwave ovens were huge.

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