Oleic acid has the advantages of being biodegradable and even edible. It's the main ingredient in olive oil. In fact, olive oil is graded according to the percent of oleic acid it contains. It'd probably be cheaper to make oleic acid artificially than get it from olives, but I doubt there's a market for it. It's similar to the way margarine was suppressed.
The empirical formula of oleic acid is similar to the medicines cyclizine and clozapine, though the former has an chain structure and the latter have cyclic structures. Thus, I wonder if oleic acid could be turned into a medicine by giving it a ring structure and the other two could be turned into insect repellents by straightening them out.
I used my own organic compound dictionary to research these possibilities.
Bah, after braving the bugs of Africa, I have no fear of such pests. Cockroaches are nothing compared to swarms of siafu army ants, malaria mosquitoes, kumbikumbi flying termites, scorpions, and giant nephila pilipes spiders. That spider's body is as long as a stapler.
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