Star Navigation Part II: The Sun and The Difference of Days

Many years ago I started writing blog posts on topics with a natural theme, most were published. However some never got there and so I have decided to revisit them, re-edit and then publish them here. This one incorporates three of my favourite topics; archaeology, past human cultures and their connection with their natural surroundingContinue

Star Navigation (Part One): Introduction

Navigating using the stars is thousands if not tens of thousands of years old, but even so I’ve heard it said by a few outdoor instructors recently that travelling at night is something that should be avoided if possible because of the potential to becoming lost, falling down something, over something or some other form ofContinue

Gunshot victims to be suspended between life and death – health – 26 March 2014 – New Scientist

Gunshot victims to be suspended between life and death – health – 26 March 2014 – New Scientist. The above link is something I can across in the New Scientist in March 2014 and interested me after I wrote the article about whether humans have a capacity to hibernate. This article draws upon the sameContinue

Urine: Would you drink your own?

I have just been listening to the BBC Radio 4 programme, Costing the Earth: Feeding the Crops of the Future, where they discuss the emerging technologies that are being developed on how to extract urine from human waste at the toilet in order that is could potentially be used for the fertilisation of crops. ItContinue

Physical Stresses under Survival Conditions Part IV: Sleep ZZzzzzzz.

If you have a brain you sleep! I will excuse any witty remarks at this point. [Ed] For anyone who has stayed up all night or gone for long periods without sleep, you will know how increasingly difficult it becomes to do without sleep until eventually the urge to sleep becomes over-welling, even when youContinue

Barefoot: Forward the Revolution (A repost to BBC “Dissected: The Incredible Human Hand and Foot”)

This is not just another article about how great barefoot running is. Instead this article is an attempt to debunk some of the facts stated in the recent BBC Four programme “Dissected: The Incredible Human Hand and Foot” presented by Dr George McGavin. It is also an article that comes at a time when it wouldContinue

Physical Stresses under Survival Conditions Part III: Human Hibernation?

Hibernation is popularly understood to be when an animals curl up asleep sometime at the end of autumn and get up again in early spring, the classic example being the black or brown bear. However hibernation is more complex than that since it is the suppression/reduction of an animals metabolism in response to an energy crisisContinue

Physical Stresses under Survival Conditions Part II: How Long can Humans Survive without Food?

One day without water and you will the notice the effects with lethargy, a darkening mood, dehydration headaches, loss of appetite, a reduction in urine quantity and most obviously a dry mouth. Humans can however go a remarkably long time without food or with extremely limited supplies and evidence of extreme survival without food can beContinue

Physical stresses under survival conditions Part 1: Human Cold Response and Hypothermia

Given that we have lived and worked outside nearly all our lives, it is not surprising that we have quite often felt wet, cold, tired, hungry, feeling like crap, wanting to stop what we are doing and go home or to the pub! It is not much of a shocker therefore to learn that coldContinue

Meadowsweet

A very good friend of mine gave me a book called “The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes” by John Gerarde, first published in 1636. Written in the flowery prose of post Elizabethan England, it is a joy to read, even though is does highlight the transient nature of common plant names, since it canContinue