If you could get me a list/ref of the mix, I\'d look around. Quite honestly, if you are involved with the SoE project, I\'d have them order the stuff from Sigma-Aldridge. I could give you the exact recipe to mix together, but actually getting the stuff myself would be difficult. Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with my research. With everyone paranoid about cash these days, red flag. And, I am sure that I probably don\'t have all the components in my lab.

One other odd idea, the short chain fatty acids are all smelly, up to about 12 C\'s Think of goats and you have 8-12 covered. But, as acids, they have to be protonated to fly (go into gas phase.) They do not fly when ionized. This can be easily fixed by making the methyl esters of the native fatty acids. Easy rxn, ask me if interested, but it adds another fun thing to try.

As far as the bacterial modification of the pheros, there are quite a few varibles to keep track of. I think that is out of range.

Finally, any of the cmpds with a 5-ene or a 4-ene-3-ol are really sensitive to oxidation. The 3-none-4-ene have much greater chemical stability (thermodynamics and conjugated bonds, O-chem revisiting...) No really, I bring this up because the nasty derivatives of cholesterol (oxides, disease causing cmpds) have the same susceptibility to oxidation. If there is a temperature degradation, this is the most likely route for cmpds with those attributes.

[ January 12, 2002: Message edited by: Walter Mitty ]