1st Survival Summer Course Basic Survival Medicine Personal Hygiene

After a long long pause due to fatherhood, here I am again to go on covering the rituals of survival, a course started this last Summer here in The Toxicologist Today.

When ones on survival mode hygiene is a must for infections and disease can weaken the individual. Poor hygiene can reduce the chances of survival. If a bath is impossible, a cloth and some water will do the trick. Feet, armpits, crotch, hands and hair are prime areas for infection. In the absence of water you can go for something as simple as an "air" bath; this can be easily made by removing as much cloths as possible and exposing the body to the sunlight for at leas 60 minutes.

If soap is a commodity you do not have at your disposal, use ashes or sand, or use a recipe that consists of animal fat and wood ashes to cook your own soap. The recipe consists of:

- extracting grease from animal fat by cutting the fat into small pieces and cooking them in a pot;

- adding enough water to the pot to avoid fat from sticking to the vessels wall;

- remember to cook this mixture slowly with frequent mixing;

- when the fat is rendered transfer it to another container to harden;

- place the ashes in a container with a spout near the bottom;

- pour water over the ashes and collect the liquid that drips out of the spot in a separate container (this mix is called the potash or lye).

- In a cooking pot, mix two parts grease to one part potash/lye, give it some fire to thicken and cook. Cut it into bars if it will make it easier to use.

The following video helps you understand the making of soap with pig lard and wood ashes. Watch it, understand it and maybe try it. I promise Ill be here soon to keep covering the hygiene part of this survival course:

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New Year New Label New Books

2014 started nearly a month ago but the Christmas Spirit is here to stay, so imbued of that holy magnificent giving-away spirit I decide to keep offering me stuff that I really desired for. Note that I never mentioned "need for", even though it is stuff so good that its inherent quality make these items utterly necessary.

I talk you guys about BOOKS. One of my passions. I read on the way to work and I read on the way home. Sometimes, most of the times actually, I skip taking the bus that would shorten my trip to work to some direct/boring 8 minutes in a  bad traffic day, and I delight myself with a good reading in a 30 minutes walk that makes me wish for more. 

I enjoy the fresh air and also the very interesting things I put my eyes on.

Recently Ive been reading 8 books at a time. Odd? No. I get bored very easily if the intensity of the literature in kind of roller-coasting through my retinas. But then I thought it would be great to start a book label here in the blog, literature concerning science obviously, but not that boring tedious amalgam of heavy weight wording with loads of definitions, concepts and formulas. This is to be interesting above all; interesting and enticing. 

For starters, let me introduce you one of the four books I just purchased through Amazon, on some very indulging prices. Some are used but who really cares?, as long as I can read the words and see the images properly, Im game!

Title: "Forensics"

Author: Richard Platt

Label: Kingfisher Knowledge

Year: First published in 2005

Price: £2.15, used but in a very good state

Public review stars: 4 stars

Public comment: 

Starting quote from book:

Link: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=uEZrWdQt5ZUC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

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UPDATE ON THE 06TH OF FEBRUARY AFTER READING HALF OF THE BOOK:
OK, its quite acceptable as you learn new things. But its a very general approach to forensics. Nice for kids or people who have no knowledge at all on forensics and thrive on it. If youre a student on your GCSEs and need a career enlightenment, this book "might" help you slightly on your decision making. I would rate it for "teenagers" and people with no knowledge of science whatsoever.
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I will come back soon to you guys with info on the other three I bought. Just let me handle primordial things better because being a dad, doing a PhD and writing up is a tough challenge :D

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The microwave militia is bad for your mental health

A few weeks ago my mum, very customarily, emailed me a compilation of web articles about the dangers associated to the use of microwaves. I read it vertically in a flash, but lacking time for an appropriate evaluation decided to dedicate my time to other posts. Now, on a Saturday morning with my wife on my side and my baby resting asleep, boring Bundesliga highlights showing on TV, Pepe Guardiola distributing autographs in a very safe-mode competition where only one team wins the title, my eyes were incapable of doing more than reading slowly... conditions are perfect to analyse this microwave issue carefully.

The question here is understanding if an appliance used on a daily basis by basically everyone in the modern world is threatening our health or some anal retentive people have been saying more than they actually know.

Many articles widespread in the Internet blatantly state that the Russians banned the microwave back in 1976 following a study that was used to evaluate health hazards. Well, the Internet is flooded constantly with misinformation or really poor sourcing. The microwave was never banned in Russia, and if you need reassurance this page contains plenty references to make you sure of that. Biased? I dont think so, for in the bottom of the page there are article references for you to read through if necessary be. It seems that conspiracy theorists confused financial incapacity to buy a microwave back in the days with a supposed ban elevated on grounds of health and safety research.

The immediate question is then if microwaves do actually present any short or long-term health hazards. Where some crazy heads claim that there are countries that have banned the microwave, truth surfaces and tells you straight away that that is a perfect lie. No country banned the microwave, what happens is that different regions have different regulations in place to control electrical and electronic appliances; but such is a regulation, not a ban altogether.

What about health concerns in using microwave to prepare food? The microwave works by emitting microwave-band electromagnetic radiation of 2.5GHz through food. Molecules with electric dipoles in them (water is the perfect example - see image) vibrate/rotate along this electromagnetic field with friction creating heat (dielectric heating). Molecules that have a more complex structure are not affected at all. Thus, the microwave presents a clean, clear, straightforward way of heating food.

The myth must end immediately until someone really produces scientific-supported information. Until then, there is a great webpage [Skeptoid] deconstructing the myth and doing for us what science should be doing, allowing progress, knowledge and understanding with the least damage possible. So lets look at the facts that Skeptoid analyses:

"ever since microwave ovens came on the market in 1954, not one person has ever exhibited a single symptom of any illness resulting from having eaten microwaved food, or from having used water that had been microwaved.Burns are the exception, but burns are caused by heat from any source; thats not unique to microwaves." [1]

"chain email, and many of these web sites, also state that giving a plant water that has been microwaved will kill it. There is even a series of unsourced photographs of two plants, one of which withers and dies while its sibling flourishes. The awesome web site Snopes.com tested this particular claim. They all did exactly the same." [1]

"Probably the most flagrant error that the Microwave Militia propagates is that microwaved food or water contains what they call "radiolytic compounds" — new chemicals created by the tearing apart of molecules in a microwave. These new chemicals are said to be dangerous, cancerous, radioactive, unnatural, or otherwise harmful. This is a demonstrably false claim. Radiolysis, which is a real process and which the Militia believes creates these radiolytic compounds, is the process by which molecules are dissociated under ionizing radiation. Water can be dissociated under ionizing alpha particle bombardment, which is a natural process. Microwave radiation, as mentioned earlier, is not ionizing radiation. It is thus scientifically incapable of causing radiolysis. The differences between microwave radiation and alpha radiation are huge. With the claim that microwaves cause dissociation of water molecules, the Microwave Militia is either deliberately lying, or they are grossly ignorant of the very subject on which they claim superior expertise." [1]

There are loads of studies available and you can make your own judgement, but facts are facts and it is a fact that the only issue associated to microwaves is using the wrong container for heating food in a microwave, as the wrong vessel can leak toxic substances if not prepared to accept microwave radiation. Apart from that, these stories are just bullocks.

[1] Are microwave ovens safe? - Skeptoid, Critical analysis of Pop Phenomena; [http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4080], last visited on the 07th of December 2013, last update on the 25th of December 2007.

1st image taken from [http://we-are-star-stuff.tumblr.com/post/63702840093/are-microwave-ovens-dangerous-the-typical]

2nd image source unknown

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