Unfortunately, what my cat has been chewing on lately is library books. (Wicked kitty!) No spraying those.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Generally speaking, things that taste hot in nature aren't poisenous to us humans.

Things that taste sour are.

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If I set the budget, we'd have Ares and more. Unfortunately, I don't set the budget, and Ares is just too expensive and too far out for us to accomplish our goals within the budget we were given.

If we halt the ISS, all versions of Ares, and transport Orion and Altair aboard DIRECTv3's Jupiter family of Shuttle-Derived Launch Vehicles, we just might make it back to the Moon by 2020.

Really. Is this safe for soft plastics then, like wiring? They're not doing it as much but I've been at wits end trying to keep them from eating cables. Zoe has already destroyed my XBox360 headset. (Thankfully, not the most expensive headset I have, but I later caught her dragging that out of a shelf too.)

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And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
With smiling [faces] lyin' to ye' everywhere ye' go
Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.

Yea I sprayed it all over my speaker wires and phone wires and computer wires and even the softer rubber of my microphone cables. No harm.

Books though? Yea that's gonna be tough lol.

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I was just sitting here contemplating the immortal words of Socrates who said, "I drank what?"

"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot." --Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"

And only library books, the wicked thing.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Maybe it likes the crinkle-noise of the protective cover..

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I was just sitting here contemplating the immortal words of Socrates who said, "I drank what?"

"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot." --Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"

He probably does. But I don't see a way to prevent that sensation.

Back to the OP, I think the sensation does have something to do with poisons. Capsaicin stimulates pain sensors, but it doesn't actually hurt us. A lot of sour and bitter things (and yes, I am aware of the distinction!) are poisons for humans; it's the most sensible explanation I can think of.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

I can think of a lot of things that are sour that aren't poisonous, though. Most fruits and certainly all citrus fruits. And they are things that human beings and other primates really love. What sour things are poisonous? I guess rotten things, as mentioned above.

But certainly, things that taste bitter are sometimes poisonous. But certainly not always. I think that part of the niche of humans is to be able to eat bitter plants that other animals will not eat. There are lots of plants that are toxic to other animals, but that we (at least me) actually enjoy eating. Stuff like parsley, oregano, chocolate. They all include toxic substances (alkaloids and tannins and things like that) that keep herbivores away from them, but we often like them.

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As above, so below

We gained the ability to eat them through evolution, I guess our violent response to those chemicals didn't disappear as it can still be useful.

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I was just sitting here contemplating the immortal words of Socrates who said, "I drank what?"

"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot." --Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"

Some of us humans don't have a neural net advanced enough to protect us with knowledge.

Bitrex-brand denatonium benzoate warning flavor

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