Posted by so on May 26, 2005, at 18:45:57
In reply to Re: Boring electronics question » so, posted by KaraS on May 26, 2005, at 18:31:50
> Wouldn't the pepper dissolve in the water - at least enough to make the water itself taste hot/spicy to the cat? I think that oils could get very messy with the carpet underneath the cords.
The water will evaporate, and the only thing that would hold the pepper to the surface would be oils that were released from the peppers during soaking. At risk of looking wrong on a forum read by some chemists, I can suggest heat or soaking might break open cells in the plant material of the pepper, but I'm reasonably sure the hot part is an oil that at most might be suspended, but not dissolved, in water. Some oils are more easily suspended in water than others, and sometimes heat can change viscosity to make oils float, but we know they don't mix with water. I'm not the scientist on this, but I'm thinking a mineral oil carrier would tend to harden, like oil-based paints. It might depend on what kind of carpets you have -- they get a certain amount of oil on them anyway, from your bare feet, or from oils tracked in off of pavements.
If i were developing it for marketing, I would ask the lab to tell me how any of the products would effect the plastic insulation around wires, but I don't think that would be a problem for casual use. It will be trial and error anyway -- maybe try it with water first and if that doesn't work, modify the formula.
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> No bears around here to worry about - just ants. Who knows maybe the bears would smell the pepper and seek out my apartment ... but I'll take my chances. :-)
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> k
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poster:so
thread:503045
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20050525/msgs/503302.html