Dry Powder extinguishers are DANGEROUS on yachts.

[aquaplane]

Quit a few folk don't know the difference between an asphixiant and a toxin.

Having fire extinguishers is a bit like having life jackets. It's best not to need either and then it don't matter if they are any good or not.

 

[whipper_snapper]

A final input, and then I lose interestNo it isn't, it is a synonym for acute mountain sickness and is a condition attributed to the hypoxia that occurs at altitude.

That is not altitude sickness, that is a normal physiological response to a high-altitude, hypoxic environment.

A quick search shows me that periodic breathing "usually occurs in 25% of people who ascend rapidly to altitudes higher than 2500 m". and is certainly considered by climbers to fall in the continuum of altitude sickness - it certainly is sickness due to altitude!

Of course. Also, none of them is a normal constituent of the human body. CO2 is. High concentrations of CO2 are "toxic" in the same was as are low concentrations of O2: they cause derangement of a normal physiological process. I have checked my dictionary, and to be a toxin something must be a poison. I don't see how CO2 can be regarded as a poison..

There are plenty of toxins that are normal constituent of the human body; free radicals such as NO which are normal immune system effectors for instance. But there is no point in quibbling over a word. I think we agree on mechanisms and the fact that CO2 is much more dangerous than an inert gas such as N2.

However,I agree that it looks like this has gone as far as it usefully can...