Death by Chocolate....

     

The biggest part of my education these days comes from my grandchildren.  Yesterday was soccer day for Arianna (my oldest grandaughter) and though it is my week to work I spent the biggest part of the day with her, Estelle (her 9 month old sister) and my son.   As always it was a very educational visit........ for me.  Arianna told me that if I wanted to catch a mouse I needed to use chocolate. I must have looked a little surprised as her father informed me it was true.  When she had come home and told them, they looked it up on the internet and found that mice do indeed like chocolate.  They like it better than cheese. Not that I doubted it but had to look it up for myself.... and share....

 

 

 

'Death by chocolate' trap for mice 14:39 17 July 2003 NewScientist.com news service Shaoni Bhattacharya   A chocolate-scented mousetrap has been developed by UK scientists to catch the pests without the need for bait. Contrary to popular belief, mice are more attracted to the scent of chocolate than the more traditional mouse-bait cheese, or other aromas like vanilla essence, according to Sorex Ltd, a manufacturer of rodent control products based in Cheshire, UK. So the company enlisted researchers at the University of Warwick to help them produce a chocolate-based trap to capture the rodents. Sorex originally had the idea of putting melted chocolate into a depression within the trap. "But we thought why not put the essences into the plastic itself?" says Ricky Singh, a senior research fellow in tooling, design and manufacture at the university. "That was the innovative part - making the product which already had the alluring smell." The lack of bait makes the trap unique, says Martina Flynn, rodent control product manager with Sorex. "It makes it very easy to use in just one step." Alluring combination Singh and colleagues tested different types of plastic with varying concentrations of chocolate essence to discover the most alluring combination. Together with Sorex, they plumped for a plastic known as ABS with a five to 10 per cent concentration by weight of chocolate essence. The plastic comes in polymer granules which have to be mixed by hand with the chocolate essence, Singh told New Scientist. It is then put through a high-pressure injection moulding machine to shape the plastic. The trap, which looks similar to a conventional mousetrap, is moulded in four separate parts so the concentration of the chocolate aroma can be varied. The mouse searches out the part of the trap with the highest concentration, says Singh. This is the spring-loaded base which, when trodden on by the mouse, snaps up and traps it. The sweet-smelling deathtrap has just completed trials and is already being used in hardware and agricultural sectors. But its fatal aroma does have a shelf-life, says Singh. The chocolate fragrance may start to fade after six months. However, it can then be used as a conventional trap with chocolate or cheese offerings. The team is now investigating a spray-on scent that would rejuvenate faded traps.

 

ScienceDaily (Jul. 21, 2003)

 

A collaboration of the University of Warwick's Innovation Direct service, a free consultancy service for SMEs (Small and Medium Sized Enterprises) and Sorex Ltd, a leading manufacturer of rodent control products, from Cheshire, has developed the mousetrap made out of chocolate scented plastic.

A key part of the venture was to test what foods mice are most drawn to. Various essences were put into a cage to attract the rodents, including cheese, vanilla essence and chocolate. In contrast to the popular view that cheese is the mouse's favourite nibble, trials of the mousetrap carried out by Innovation-Direct showed that most mice prefer chocolate.

 

Now who would have guessed?...... maybe JohnOh