CO2 & U

Disney '43 - The Winged Scourge
Celtoon
Talking to a guy I know, he tells me he was plagued by mosquitoes last January, here, in Oregon. Seemed a little far fetched, but winters are pretty mild here, and he insisted, sokay, fine, mosquitoes in January. He showed the county bug man a sample and bug man, said, yup, that's a mosquito. He actually went into some scientific detail about it. Seems there are 40 or 50 different species of mosquitoes living in Oregon. They set up some mosquito traps around the house. Mosquitoes travel in straight lines out from their breeding grounds. They checked on the traps a few days later and the traps showed a definite direction for the source of the mosquitoes. They did some searching and quickly located a covered swimming pool that hadn't been adequate poisoned (chlorinated). Cleaning that up eliminated the mosquito problem.

I'm watching another video about how they control mosquitoes at Disney World and I notice that they are using a whole bunch of animated clips. A search on YouTube turned up the above video. The mosquito traps they use at Disney World give off CO2, which seems to be a mosquito attractor. Don't want to be bothered by mosquitos? Quit breathing.

Nitrogren Atmosphere Warning Sign

Or not. When you are holding your breath, it is the increasing level of CO2 that makes you desperate to breath, not the loss of oxygen. As such you can suffocate a person with nitrogen. They aren't getting any oxygen, but their CO2 concentration is not increasing, so they have no sense of being desperate. If you don't get any oxygen you will just pass out and die. It works so well that some states may start using it for executions instead of lethal injection. Some produce warehouses employ a nitrogen atmosphere to help keep produce fresh. Don't be walking in there to get you some veggies, well, not unless you are looking to become fertilizer.

Paris Green, mentioned in the Disney video at top, is a poison. It is made from copper(II) acetate and arsenic trioxide. Didn't I just run into arsenic trioxide? Yes, I did:


Freezing 200,000 Tons of Lethal Arsenic Dust
This is the Giant Mine at the Great Slave Lake in Northwest Territories in Canada. Makes me wonder how many people died of arsenic poisoning at this mine when it was in operation, or, if nobody died, how did they manage to keep people from being poisoned?

Update November 2012 replaced missing video.