What wacky idea has the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation put $1 million into now?

A plan to treat malaria by sticking the patient into a microwave.

O.K., not the whole patient. Probably just an arm or a leg. And not just any microwave oven, but one set at very low power and with the frequency of its electromagnetic field tuned very precisely.

“You can’t do this with a kitchen microwave,” said Dr. José A. Stoute, a Penn State microbiologist and one of the two inventors of the concept. Other than that, the process is simple: Open special microwave, insert limb, repeat daily.

Dr. Stoute and his co-inventor, Carmenza Spadafora of the Institute for Advanced Scientific Studies in Panama, were originally given $100,000 by the Gates Foundation after writing a two-page proposal suggesting microwaves could safely kill malaria parasites in the blood. Dr. Spadafora proved the idea worked in a petri dish. The new $1 million is to see if it works in mice.