Rodent posed risk to electrical wiring on Scandinavian Airlines flight
  • CarbonAlpine@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    2 months ago

    I mean yeah, that’s disgusting, but why land the plane over it? It’d be one thing if it was running aisle to aisle biting people’s faces, but I don’t think that was the case.

    • sinkingship@mander.xyzEnglish
      6·
      2 months ago

      Didn’t read the article, but there was the worry mentioned in the title, that the rodents could have messed with the electrical wiring.

      Can anybody explain why mice like wires so much? Do they look like worms to them or do they have a electrocution kink or can they sense electricity somehow or something? Genuinely interested.

      • over_clox@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5·
        2 months ago

        There was extensive research that went on before they built one of the earliest digital computers, the ENIAC.

        They already knew that it was going to be very large and have a whole hell of a lot of wiring, so before they even started building it, they studied which sorts of wiring insulation rats liked the absolute least.

        It turned out that rats and mice can hear the electricity going through the wires, and it bothers them to the point they chew the wires to try to stop the sounds they hear, so the types of insulation that also insulate those frequencies also help repel the rats/mice in general.

        • sinkingship@mander.xyzEnglish
          2·
          2 months ago

          Interesting. Even so much that after a 14 hour road trip I read a little more about it.

          The first thought was “hearing?” but then I remembered that I heard electricity before, standing next to a transformer.

          According to what I read this is something different, though. High voltage is audible due to ionized air in close vicinity, while home appliances can be audible due to AC power shifting magnetic fields and that can make internal components vibrate.

          Anecdotally, I believe I have heard close hitting lightnings - just before happening - in my power grid.

          • over_clox@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            2 months ago

            It probably also partly has something to do with whatever the insulation tastes like to the rats as well. Kinda like the reason Nintendo adds a bittering agent to the plastic on their Switch cartridges, to prevent children from chewing or swallowing them.

      • southsamurai@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        2·
        2 months ago

        Nesting.

        The materials make decent nests. That’s what I was told, anyway.

        Edit: I was also told it was just to chew things in general, and we only see that they chew wires because it causes problems.