9 HN users recommended this explainer7 months2021–2026score 7.5
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
HN recommends it as a well-told chase of a weird fact that lands a rare interview with Lovelock at age 101.
Tom Scott investigates the claim that the microwave was invented to heat hamsters, and interviews James Lovelock about freezing and microwave-thawing hamsters in the 1950s. It traces early magnetron uses beyond radar.
“The whole story is worth a watch since Tom Scott does an admirable job of explaining” (HN, 2022)
Despite everything else he accomplished in his quite storied professional career as one of the last independent scientists... Including his work on the Viking mars landers! [link] To me he will always be the man who invented his own microwave to thaw frozen hamsters. The whole story is worth a watch since Tom Scott does an admirable job of explaining how he went digging up a weird fact expecting to debunk it only to wind up recording an amazing interview with James Lovelock [this video] but if you’re impatient the interview with lovelock about cryopreserved hamsters and his "microwave" starts here [this video]
Tom Scott chases a weird fact and lands an amazing Lovelock interview.
They already studied this. It sometimes worked with small animals like mice, but fails as organisms get larger. There was a really interesting video about how microwaves were first used to test this: [this video]
Explains how microwaves were first used to thaw frozen animals.
That's purely a size thing iirc. Lot quicker to get enough heat into a mouse to thaw it, than a human. Edit to add an interesting related video: [this video]
Related video about thawing frozen animals with microwaves.
Tom Scott interviewed him last year in a really wonderful video about microwaves. [this video] > I found an article that said "The microwave was invented to heat hamsters humanely in 1950s experiments." And I thought, no it wasn't. ...was it? At over 100 years old, the man was remarkably coherent and healthy. Quite sad to hear he's passed now.
Wonderful video interviewing a remarkably coherent 100-year-old Lovelock.
This where I can post Tom Scott’s video on Microwaves, in which James Lovelock is interviewed: [this video] Spoiler warning, well you wouldn’t watch it if I didn’t tell you would you.
Tom Scott's microwave video with a Lovelock interview.
Yes, Tom Scott is one talented YouTuber. See, for example, his video on microwaving frozen hamsters back to life[0], in which he interviews the 101-year-old J. E. Lovelock, the scientist who did the work back in the fifties. [0] [this video]
Microwaving frozen hamsters back to life, with Lovelock interviewed at 101.
Tom Scott made a great video about it, he even got to the guy who started using microwaves for thawing entire small animals. Before microwaves (diathermic heating) they would use a hot piece of metal, like a large spoon. [this video] And yes, you can unfreeze a rock solid rat, then see it walk around. This is why cryogenics was hyped so much, because it sort of works on small animals.
Covers the man who thawed frozen small animals with microwaves.
The Tom Scott video( [this video] ) did a pretty good summary of the Percy Spencer microwave (a giant commercial oven) and the later parallel development by J. E. Lovelock of a small microwave to reheat small mammals for experiments with cryorevival (replacing lamps and hot paddles).
Summarizes Percy Spencer's oven and Lovelock's small microwave for cryorevival.
> " I kind of doubt an independent inventor could bring this to market with today's startup climate. " Especially the kind of inventor who created microwaves for experiments with reanimating frozen hamsters, cough James Lovelock. (Tom Scott's video "I promise this story about microwaves is interesting" which includes a brief interview with James Lovelock last year at age 101 - [this video] )
Includes an interview with James Lovelock about reanimating frozen hamsters.
In the 1950s scientists were freezing small rodents and reanimating them using a primitive microwave. [0] If vitrifying and reviving a single rodent organ is the state-of-the-art 70 years later, I am not exactly impressed by their progress. [0]: [this video]
Cited as source for 1950s rodent freezing and microwave reanimation.
> " But this would have been the 1950s(?), so I'd assume they empirically determined a balance of functionality + technical feasibility for water, called it a lunch, and went to have five martinis in a practical fashion. " Or maybe they just wanted to revive frozen hamsters more humanely: "I promise this story about microwaves is interesting." by Tom Scott, about scientist James Lovelock - [this video]
Microwave invented to revive frozen hamsters humanely.
Lovelock was quick-freezing and microwave-thawing entire living hamsters in the mid 1900s. If it works on a whole hamster brain, it probably works in a sliver of human brain tissue. [this video]
Lovelock froze and microwave-thawed whole hamsters.
[this video] "A hamster is an acceptable size." [link] "Studies on golden hamsters during cooling to and rewarming from body temperatures below 0° C. III. Biophysical aspects and general discussion"
Cites the video line about hamster size alongside a research paper.
Tom Scott has a video on microwaves where he interviews James Lovelock about the frozen hamsters: * [this video] Lovelock passed away a year later (in 2022): * [link]
> A history of microwave ovens without mention of reanimating cryogenically frozen hamsters? There is: > 1954: James Lovelock et al. reanimated cryogenically-frozen hamsters using an ad-hoc microwave oven. Mentions the Tom Scott video where he interview Lovelock (who passed a year later, in 2022): * [this video]
Tom Scott interviews Lovelock about reanimating cryogenically frozen hamsters.
From [link] "In the mid-1950s, Lovelock experimented with the cryopreservation of rodents, determining that hamsters could be frozen and revived successfully.[14] Hamsters were frozen with 60% of the water in the brain crystallised into ice with no adverse effects recorded. Other organs were shown to be susceptible to damage.[15]" And there's a Tom Scott's interview with James Lovelock: [this video]
Interview with Lovelock on freezing and reviving hamsters.
Someone wrote the following comment then deleted it. I spent 30 minutes on my response and wanted to post it anyway. Apologies if the original comment was deleted by a mod, I hope this is OK to post. ---QUOTE--- My "test" for video generation turning movie making on its head is when a model can add the missing Tom Bombadil chapters to Peter Jackson's LOTR movies. Probably 20 - 30 minutes of HD, aesthetically synced, scripted etc with minimal editing after a detailed prompt and source material. Qualifier - the AI just has to follow the book script, third party tools ok to use for lip syncing and audio :) I said 5 years away last year. Feels like it might be more like 1 - 2 years. What do you think? ---END QUOTE--- My response: I think we're getting into diminishing returns territory with this AI stuff. These video/image generators are impressive but they don't "understand" physical reality and probably never will without a breakthrough. You can see this in the demo videos, the best looking ones are glorified still images and the worst are whenever something physical happens, like the lemon being picked up or the guy eating cereal. These examples may get better, but I really doubt they'll ever look like real unaltered camera footage without adding an understanding of how our physical reality works into the model somehow. For the script generation, Fellowship of the Ring is not a movie script and requires serious interpretation and planning to be converted into one. Especially i
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