Granted that this is a seasonal thing, I microwave glass preserving jars (no 
metal lids)for 2 mins to sterilize them prior to adding contents....no 
problems yet (crossed fingers etc. However, to be strictly honest, there are 
probably traces of water on the jars that absorb some of the energy. I seem 
to recall that microwaves are used in industry to dry paint and other 
things. Anyone haev some insights??


Louise


>From: "J. A. Kiernan" 
>To: WWmn916@aol.com
>CC: histonet@pathology.swmed.edu
>Subject: Re: microwaving slides
>Date: Wed, 05 Mar 2003 01:10:34 -0500
>
>As described, this reads like a recipe for "how to fry your
>microwave oven without even trying."  According to everything
>I've read about microwaving (lab and domestic), there must
>always be a body of microwave-absorbing material (such as
>liquid water) in the oven. Otherwise the radiation is
>reflected by the walls and much of it ends up back in the
>magnetron, inducing electric currents that can burn out
>the wires. Heating drained slides (not much water) until
>the slides are thoroughly dried (no liquid water) seems
>risky. In the absence of water, dipole molecules in tissue
>can absorb microwaves, but the sections on several slides
>hardly amount to a significant body of microwave-absorbing
>matter.
>
>Two minutes at full power crispifies two rashers of
>bacon (?=30g tissue; unpublished morning observations,
>repeated at least 1000 times but never syetematically
>recorded and sent to a peer reviewed journal).
>
>Microwave experts send in Histonet replies occasionally.
>Perhaps some of them will say I've got it all wrong. I'm
>writing from memory of sources such as Boon's "Cookbook,"
>some of Gary Logins writings, and review articles in
>Proceedings of the Roy. Microsc. Soc. I hope this reply
>provokes criticism and discussion, backed with
>literature references that we can look up and evaluate.
>
>          John Kiernan
>--
>-------------------------
>John A. Kiernan
>Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology
>The University of Western Ontario
>London,   Canada   N6A 5C1
>    kiernan@uwo.ca
>    http://publish.uwo.ca/~jkiernan/


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