Colossal Squid May Be Headed For a Microwave
Remember that colossal squid caught recently off the coast of New Zealand? Well, it was frozen for preservation and now it seems that it’s heading toward a giant microwave. Unless John Ablett can prevent it from happening.
“Our major concern is how to defrost this animal quickly,” he says. “Conventional defrosting techniques on an animal this size would take [more than] four days.”
Top of the list so far is the idea of using an industrial microwave machine, such as those used to dry timber.
But John Ablett, mollusk curator at England’s Natural History Museum, said the idea is “crazy.”
“The skin in particular is very soft and easily torn,” he said. Microwaving would pose “a big risk of damage to the specimen.”
Weird.
