Yea but I wonder how much booze and drugs it would take to kill all dem
roaches?
KM
wrote in message
...
On 23 Oct 2003 07:24:20 -0700, Steve Christensen
wrote:

In article , Rosalie B.
says...

x-no-archive:yes "Paul" wrote:

Errr....why not just go buy a chunk of dryice, toss it in and close
the
boat up?

One extra Oxygen molecule.

But it's not available is it? I thought it would be bound up and
unusable.
We spray it on a fire to choke it out so I figured it may have oxygen
but
it's not available. For that matter, water has oxygen too doesn't it?
But
you can't breathe it since it's not available.

I may be wrong ... I'm just wondering.

Carbon dioxide (from dry ice) is a simple asphyxiant. If it displaces
the oxygen in the air it will kill you, but it takes quite a bit of
it. You can be exposed to 30,000 ppm for 15 minutes and still be OK.

Carbon monoxide at 1500 ppm may lead to death, and the 15 minute
exposure limit is 35 ppm for an hour. This is because without the
extra oxygen molecule, CO has a 200 to 300 times great affinity for
hemoglobin than oxygen does. So even if there is enough oxygen
present, the CO will kick it off the hemoglobin and you will die. So
it isn't just a simple asphyxiant any more.


Roselie is correct about the CO being more than an asphyxiant. But the
object
of all this is to kill roaches, right? It's been awhile since college
zoology,
but I don't think roaches even have circulatory systems, let alone
hemoglobin.

I have frozen roaches in liquid nitrogen (when bored during a late night
in the
lab) only to have them thaw out and crawl away. Hardy little beasts.
Does
anyone even know whether depriving them of oxygen (with CO, CO2, N2,
whatever)
will kill them? I bet it's damn hard to do.

Steve Christensen

Wait until Keith Richards dies, and find out what killed him. That
will be your answer.

BB