The folks over at BBspot are callously spreading microbiological misinformation (click for full-size):
This is just plain irresponsible and utterly wrong. Surely everyone can see the obvious problem here, right?
When this happens, the flame is blue, not orange.
Uh, or so I’ve heard.
(If it isn’t obvious – what you do in this situation is calmly take the spreader out and set it on your nice, flameproof benchtop, and set something non-fragile and non-flammable on top of the flaming jar of alcohol, which will then go out quickly as the oxygen gets used up. All the labs I’ve been in lately use “canning” jars for the alcohol in this application, complete with lids which can be set on top to extinguish the flame.)
It sounds like an experiment is in order to find the proper color of the flame. Let me know how it goes.
p.s. Keep your eyebrows and arm hair safe.
Hmmm…sounds like a definite subject for a future “risking my very life in the name of science” blog post. (Do I need to create a category for that, I wonder?…)
Hey! Then I would definitely qualify for several badges…