By David Maccar

Gerber is releasing a new line of knives in 2011 dubbed simply the Survivor Series, representing a collaboration between the knife maker and survivalist/TV show host Bear Grylls, a first for the star of the Discovery Channel's Man vs. Wild. These will also be the first pieces of survival gear bearing BG's name and stamp of approval since he parted ways with Bayleyknife's S4 series.

As a taste, the first entry in the series is currently available for pre-order through Amazon.com for $59.99, a reduced price that may go up when the knife is released on November 15.

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By Chad Love

Reptiles and amphibians have long been used as a bellwether for water quality, sort of a slimy and/or scaly-skinned canary in the coal mine. Salamanders, frogs, turtles, alligators...wait a second, alligators?

From this story in The Sun News:
Could pesticides in the state's waters increase a woman's chances of contracting endometriosis or a girl's risk for early onset puberty? Do they affect the size of a man's sex organ? A group of local researchers are studying alligators to find out. Gators and other marine life offer a portal into human reproductive development and disease, said Dr. Louis Guillette Jr., a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Medical University of South Carolina Guillette, who joined MUSC last month after studying gators in Florida for more than two decades, moved his operation to the Hollings Marine Laboratory on James Island, where his team will conduct experiments to study the links between environmental factors and reproductive development and disease. Guillette said gators and humans are "very similar at the cellular level." "The difference is they're in the water all the time," he said.

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By Tim Romano

This video comes to you via our local news here in Denver. Pardon the advertisement at the beginning, but this short video clip is definitely worth watching. It tells the story of Craig Horlacher, a geologist who was fishing for cutthroat trout north of Steamboat Springs, Colorado. He slipped in the river, broke his leg and spent 5 days and six nights… in the river. Yes, I said in the river. He caught and ate raw trout to survive. He was eventually found and spent 33 days in the ICU to recuperate. How he survived, I have no idea. Shows you the importance of fishing with a buddy in remote places. -- TR

By Chad Love

There's nothing more irritating than running face-first into a spiderweb while walking to your blind in the pre-dawn darkness. Now imagine running into this one...

From this story on Wired.com: 

A spider discovered deep in the jungles of Madagascar spins the largest webs in the world, using silk that’s tougher than any known biological substance.

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By Chad Love

From this AP story:
Without their usual diet of berries and nuts as hibernation approaches, mama, papa and baby bears in the West are turning to cars and cabins and finding the leftovers are juuuust right. Huckleberries, nuts and pine cones are in short supply this year because of poor growing conditions, so bears have taken to breaking into cars, nosing around backyards and raiding orchards. And as happens when bears roam into towns, they end up trapped or dead. In New Mexico, 83 bears have been killed so far this year, more than three times as many as last year. It's all got wildlife officials from the Pacific Northwest down to New Mexico advising people to put away bird feed, stow trash and keep any other smelly objects under wraps.

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By Chad Love

When you read about crusty, misanthropic mountain man hermits who reject modern society in favor of living a close-to-the-bone, hunting and fishing-based existence out in the wild, they're almost always men, and almost always American. But here's a story, or rather, an obituary (hat tip to Rabbit Stew for the find) about a British woman who could have taught Jeremiah Johnson a thing or two.
 

From this story in the UK Telegraph:
Hope Bourne, who died on August 22 aged 91, was an author who celebrated life on Exmoor, where she lived for more than 60 years; her knowledge of this beautiful corner of England ˆ of its flora and fauna and its traditional communities ˆ was encyclopedic, and was gained by submission to a lifestyle which few in the 20th century would have dared even to contemplate. [ Read Full Post ]