static static

[Mary J Stewart]

Try humidifying the CO2 by bubbling it through water before it gets to 
your porus plastic pad.  Basically, get a erlenmeyer flask with a rubber 
stopper with two holes bored into it.  Through the holes, insert two 
lengths of a rigid tube (a 5 ml disposable plastic pipette works well if 
you just cut it to the right length).  One on the lengths of tube
should be long enough to almost reach the bottom of the flask---Put the 
tubing that comes from your CO2 source onto this tubing.  It will bring 
the CO2 into the water and humidify it.  The other rigid tube should be 
shorter, ie, not reach into the water.  This tube should be connected to 
the tubing that leads into the CO2 plastic pad.  In this way, the 
incoming CO2 will be bubbled through the water via the longer rigid tube, 
then the humidified CO2 will leave the flask via the shorter rigid tube 
and will be routed to your CO2 pad.  This should help the static problem.
 

On Wed, 8 Oct 1997, Chris Jones & Deirdre Sumpter wrote:

> Does anyone have suggestions on how to go about minimizing static
> electricity when working with flies? I'm using plastic vials and both
> cotton and foam plugs (the latter being noticably worse for static) and a
> typical CO2 pad surfaced with porous plastic. My problem, recognizable to
> most everyone reading this, I suspect, is that static will sporadically
> fling anesthetized flies to the four corners of the pad and beyond, and
> it's driving me nuts. Any advice on how to defeat (or at least circumvent)
> Mother Nature in this struggle?
> 
>