Autodidact: self-taught   Dissolving Bodies  by V. L. Craven
From The Explainer on  How long does it take to dissolve a human
body?  Assassins for Mexican-American drug cartels have been
dissolving their victims’ bodies in chemicals, according to a
piece published Tuesday in the New York Times. The process is
known colloquially as making pozole, in reference to a
traditional Mexican stew. It can take several hours to make a
pot of pozole. How long does it take to dissolve a human body?
About the same, with the right chemicals and equipment. The
assassins typically use sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide,
strong bases commonly known as lye. (The Times story
misidentified their reagent of choice as an acid.) Heated to 300
degrees, a lye solution can turn a body into tan liquid with the
consistency of mineral oil in just three hours. If your kettle
isn’t pressurized, you won’t be able to heat the solution much
above the boiling point of water, 212 degrees, and it might take
an additional hour or two to com