New Yorkers strolling in Central Park might have seen an odd sight today: men with dirt on their faces strapped in harnesses rappelling down a large rock near the Center Drive/East Drive entrance.
They were participating in a condensed version of the Bear Grylls Survival Academy, a five-day course where average people can learn Grylls’ extreme survival techniques. The academy launched in November 2012 and the five-day courses will begin in Scotland this July. This event was hosted by VisitScotland as part of Scotland Week, a celebration of all things Scottish in the U.S. and Canada.
For a number of years following the end of World War II, Japanese soldiers would occasionally emerge from the jungles in the Pacific theater, either unwilling to believe or unaware that the war was over. The last verified Japanese holdout came out of hiding in the Philippines and officially surrendered back in 1974. It's an incredible story, but a piece in this month's Smithsonian magazine tops it, in both longevity and in the sheer harshness of the landscape in which it occurs. In 1978, Soviet geologists discovered a family of six eking out a desperate existence in the depths of the vast Siberian taiga. They had been living there, completely cut off from all human contact, completely unaware of events like WWII, since 1936.
A Canadian deer hunter who vanished on Nov. 15 was finally rescued this weekend after wandering the bush for three weeks.
From this story in the http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Lost+Manitoba+hunter+describes+survive... " target="_blank">Calgary Herald: A hunter who turned up after being lost in the southeast Manitoba bush for three weeks says thoughts of his family and the hundreds of people who were looking for him kept him going. "(It was) my wife and my son and the knowledge that the search and rescue community and people I don't even know were out looking," said Brad Lambert, who turned up safe and sound Saturday after spending 21 nights in his truck, stranded in the bush. "That means a great deal."
So what would your family do as the world is being vaporized by mutually assured thermonuclear destruction? Well, if you were lucky enough to be a proactive Popular Science subscriber in 1951, you'd probably be cozily hunkered down in your "family foxhole," where you’d be blithely going about your business, cheerfully and wholesomely preparing for Armageddon as untold megatons of radioactive hellfire rained down from above. Because that's just how make-believe families in the '50s-era rolled... Cool stuff, sort of a "Leave It To Beaver" meets "On The Beach" mash-up ...via BoingBoing.
What do you think would be the modern equivalent of the family foxhole? How would you build it, what would you put in it, and if you had to use it, would you be nearly as happy and nonchalant as the family on the cover? And just how good are those Russian guns?
As the drought afflicting the southern part of the nation deepens, wildlife is moving out of the woods and into our yards in search of what little food and water is available.
From this story in the Houston Chronicle: The rat looked dead. It was face down, arms splayed, in the big shallow pan of water placed near the fence as succor for the wildlife suffering in adjacent woods left blistering hot and deadly dry by Texas' ongoing drought. Every morning, we'd fill the pan with clean, cool water and then watch as a steady parade of wildlife trickled from the woods to slake their obviously considerable thirst or nibble at the mix of millet, sunflowers, shelled corn and other food we scattered for them. There were cat squirrels, swamp rabbits, possums, coons and all manner of birds. It was an all-day procession, a sure sign the deepening drought was causing wildlife that normally survived by living wary and crepuscular lives to do something they normally would not do - abandon the cover of the forest and expose themselves in a wide-open yard during the middle of the day to get a drink of water or a bite of food...The rat, it turned out, wasn't dead at all. It was simply floating in the water, trying to keep cool and hydrated.
As a natural pessimist who assumes everything could go south at any given moment, this video piqued my interest. Take a look at the LifeCube emergency shelter, a tent system with an integrated hard floor that serves as its own heavy plastic shipping container when not deployed. The cube has detachable hoop wheels so it can be moved over uneven terrain. Once the whole thing unfolds, it forms a raised 144-square-foot platform.
Who can forget the amazing footage of the Japanese tsunami sweeping literal mountains of debris into the ocean? Now scientists say all that debris - millions of tons of it - is slowly making its way to the west coast.
From this story on mercurynews.com: Millions of tons of debris that washed into the ocean during Japan's catastrophic earthquake and tsunami in March -- everything from furniture to roofs to pieces of cars -- are now moving steadily toward the United States and raising concerns about a potential environmental headache. Scientists using computer models say the wreckage, which is scattered across hundreds of miles of the Pacific Ocean, is expected to reach Midway and the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands by next spring and beaches in California, Oregon and Washington in 2013 or early 2014.
U.S. and Mexican authorities are still searching for survivors after a chartered fishing boat carrying 44 passengers and crew capsized after being caught in a storm off the coast of Mexico.
From this story on ABC News: The U.S. Coast Guard and Mexican Navy are scouring the Sea of Cortez by boat and helicopter in a continuing effort to locate the seven U.S. tourists still missing after the sinking of a charter boat off the coast of Mexico Sunday. One U.S. tourist died. The Coast Guard will be using a larger aircraft in its search today that is capable of covering greater distances, U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Pamela Boehland said. The Coast Guard expects to be up in the air over the Sea of Cortez around 10:30 a.m. PT. The Mexican Navy is expected to deploy the same two helicopters it has been using.
From the Billings Gazette: Lost in the Big Horn Mountains, presumed dead by family and friends and hallucinating because of too much wind and too little food, Travis McMahan, stumbling up a creek, found a dead fish.
“It looked all rotten,” he said. . . . “I cut its head off and skinned its back,” he said of the fish. “And there was good meat in there, so I ate it.”
What would it take for you to summon Search and Rescue? Lost for a day? Mauled by a bear? Fell out of your treestand? How about, tasted some salty water?