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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Seed Sellers

I have recently moved in to town and have no access to any form of garden, I am also in the middle of moving again so my potted vegetables are struggling.  As such I can not sell vegetable plants or seeds at the moment.  When I get set up again I will list everything on my For Sale page, hopefully we sort everything out soon as I miss growing and selling vegetable plants and seeds.

I have had a few people ask me where to buy seeds or they have asked my opinion of different companies so I thought I would write a post about some of them.  Some of these companies have bought seeds from me in the past, some I have bought seeds from, others I have heard about from other people.  I have probably forgotten to include some, if I remember them I will try to add them later.

Please note that I am not affiliated with any of these companies and that the views expressed are based on my personal experiences.  I am in no way liable if they do not live up to expectations.  This is based on past experiences and they may or may not treat you better or worse than they have done to me in the past.

Useful seeds  http://usefulseeds.com/

Range:  Limited (for now, but increasing) but what he does have are rather rare and/or amazing

Based:  VIC Australia

Prices:  Reasonably high, but you can not buy many of these varieties anywhere else and the quality is excellent so the high prices are more than justified

Seed numbers:  Good

Service: no idea as I have never bought from him but I know him and he is a good guy.  He has given me seeds in the past and they were of very high quality.  I assume he would provide excellent service as he loves what he does

The Seed Collection  www.theseedcollection.com.au/

Range: good, nothing particularly rare

Based:  VIC Australia

Prices:  Low to very low prices

Seed Numbers:  Great, always contains more seeds than stated in each packet

Service:  Great, they are willing to answer questions and even include extra packets of seed in each order


The Dwarf Tomato Project  http://dwarftomatoproject.net/Releases-SH.php  

Range: small range of newly bred, various colours, dwarf tomatoes
Based: Australia
Prices: Low prices, they are simply trying to recover costs instead of make a profit.  They have given their seeds to some seed companies who sell them for almost tripple the price of the Dwarf Tomato Project
Seed Numbers: Good, about 20 seeds per pack
Service: Excellent, Patrina bred many of these varieties and wants them to be more popular.  She is willing to answer questions and offer advice.

Rangeview Seeds  http://rangeviewseeds.com.au/

Range:  Good, some rare things

Based:  VIC Australia

Prices:  Good/variable

Seed Numbers:  Good

Service:  Good

Eden Seeds  http://edenseeds.com.au/

Range:  Great

Based:  QLD Australia

Prices:  Good

Seed Number:  Good

Service:  Good

Green Harvest http://greenharvest.com.au/

Range:  Great, they sell seeds, plants and other garden products

Based:  QLD Australia

Prices:  Good but postage is high

Seed Number:  Good

Service:  Great

Phoenix Seeds  www.phoenixseeds.net.au/

Range:  Great, some very interesting and rare varieties

Based:  Tasmania

Prices:  Good but postage is high

Seed Number:  Varies

Service:  I dont know as I have not bought from them yet

Diggers club

Range:  Great but sometimes they rename things or make erroneous claims of exclusivity to appear better than they are.  Descriptions of varieties are often embellished

Based:  VIC Australia

Prices:  High to extremely high, postage cost is unreasonable for smaller orders

Seed Number:  Extremely low, but it does vary

Service:  Dreadful.  They have sold me out of date seeds as well as bulbs covered in mould and then tried to blame me when they failed to sprout!  They have also sent the wrong seeds and getting replacements or refund from them was a nightmare.  Hopefully this changes as they are one of the best known heirloom seed sellers in Australia

Pepper Lover http://pepperlover.com/

Range:  Only sell chilli and capsicums, they have a great range of these.  Some they have bred themselves

Based:  America - only some species are allowable imports into Australia so please check AQIS BICON database prior to ordering

Prices:  Good with free postage to Australia!

Seed Number:  Good, extra seeds in each pack

Service:  Great, they even include extra seed packets in each order

Ebay

Range:  Varies from time to time

Based:  All over the place

Prices:  Varies a lot

Seed Number:  Varies a lot

Service:  Varies.  Beware that many seeds sold on Ebay are for things that do not even exist (such as multi coloured blue roses) and they are stealing from you.  You will get seeds, but by the time you grow them and work out what has happened it will be too late to get back your money.  I have also bought some great seeds from excellent sellers through Ebay.  Please do your research prior to ordering anything from Ebay

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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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