Purple-K is a firefighting chemical. Although bicarbonate of soda had been used to fight fires for many years prior to its discovery, in the 1950s the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory discovered that switching potassium in for the sodium in bicarbonate increased its ability to quench flame by a factor of at least two.

Fire requires four components to burn, sometimes known as the 'fire tetrahedron': heat, oxygen, fuel, and a chemical chain reaction. Purple-K is one of the few…

Fantasy writing being the derivative mess it is, many novels tend to adopt the same themes and tropes. One symptom of this includes structuring the society of the protagonist, or the societies around the protagonist, in a manner consistent to a medieval kingdom in various forms. The most common riff on these is to use Lord of the Rings with a paint job. However, over the last few decades, a few other model kingdoms have popped up.

These tend to be used, reused,…

Facilitated communication is a method for a helper, or facilitator, to assist a person with both motor difficulties and an inability to speak to communicate by helping the disabled person type responses to questions by feeling subtle movements and gestures the disabled person is trying to make, but cannot perform independantly due to the disability.

If this sounds a bit like using a Ouija board to you, you're not alone.

Facilitated communication caused a big sensation in…

Sugar to exfoliate the skin; oil to moisturize it; maybe a bit of scent to make you feel divine. It's the simplest thing in the world.

You've got two options. You can pay a fortune for this stuff at Lush or Bath & Body Works or some other bourge emporium, or you can make your own two-month supply for about a dollar. The homemade stuff is at least as good as you get in the store, particularly if you add a bit of your favourite scent. But perfume is scarcely necessary --…