Thursday 19 March 2009

WILDERNESS MEDICINE - 5th Edn

This book is expensive, really expensive, you can buy it new on Amazon UK for £133.35 ($159.20 Amzon.com = £109.40) and comes with a DVD which is a lot of money to gamble on a book so I decided to post the link to the torrent for the .chm edition of the book (DVD not included). If you like it and think it's worth it then make sure you buy it.



WILDERNESS MEDICINE

Text with DVD
Fifth Edition

By
Paul Auerbach, MD, MS, FACEP, FAWM, Clinical Professor of Surgery, Division of Emergency Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA

Description
Manage any medical emergency you encounter in the great outdoors! Every day, more and more people are venturing into the wilderness and extreme environments...and many are unprepared for the dangers that come with these adventures. Whether these victims are stranded on mountain tops, lost in the desert, trapped deep in the woods, or injured far out at sea, this indispensable resource equips rescuers and health care professionals to diagnose and treat the full range of emergencies and health problems encountered in the wilderness!

Contents


MOUNTAIN MEDICINE

1. High Altitude Medicine 2. Avalanches 3. Lightning Injuries


COLD AND HEAT

4. Thermoregulation 5. Accidental Hypothermia 6. Immersion in Cold Water 7. Nonfreezing Cold-Induced Injuries 8. Frostbite 9. Polar Medicine 10. Pathophysiology of Heat-Related Illnesses 11. Clinical Management of Heat-Related Illnesses


BURNS, FIRE AND RADIATION

12. Wildland Fires: Dangers and Survival 13. Emergency Care of the Burned Victim 14. Exposure to Radiation from the Sun 15. Volcanic Eruptions


INJURIES AND MEDICAL INTERVENTIONS

16. Injury Prevention 17. Principles of Pain Management 18. Bandaging and Taping 19. Emergency Airway Management 20. Wilderness Trauma, Surgical Emergencies, and Wound Management 21. Improvisation in the Wilderness 22. Hunting and Other Weapons Injuries 23. Tactical Medicine and Combat Casualty Care 24. Wilderness Orthopaedics 25. The Eye in the Wilderness 26. Wilderness Dentistry and Management of Facial Injuries 27. Wilderness Cardiology 28. Wilderness Neurology 29. Chronic Diseases and Wilderness Activities 30. Mental Health in the Wilderness


RESCUE AND SURVIVAL

31. Wilderness Emergency Medical Services and Response Systems 32. Search and Rescue 33. Technical Rescue in the Wilderness Environment 34. Litters and Carries 35. Aeromedical Transport 36. Essential of Wilderness Survival 37. Jungle Travel and Survival 38. Desert Travel and Survival 39. Whitewater Medicine and Rescue 40. Caving and Cave Rescue


ANIMALS, INSECTS, AND ZOONOSES

41. Protection from Blood-Feeding Arthropods 42. Mosquitoes and Mosquito-Borne Diseases 43. Malaria 44. Arthropod Envenomation and Parasitism 45. Tick-Borne Diseases 46. Spider Bites 47. Scorpion Envenomation 48. Bites by Venomous Reptiles in the Americas 49. Bites by Venomous Snakes outside the Americas 50. Antivenoms and Immunobiologicals: Immunotherapeutics of Envenomation 51. Bites and Injuries Inflicted by Wild and Domestic Animals 52. Bear Behavior and Attacks 53. Wilderness-Acquired Zoonoses 54. Rabies 55. Emergency Veterinary Medicine


PLANTS

56. Seasonal and Acute Allergic Reactions 57. Plant-Induced Dermatitis 58. Toxic Plant Ingestions 59. Toxic Mushroom Ingestions 60. Ethnobotany: Plant-Derived Medical Therapy


FOOD AND WATER

61. Field Water Disinfection 62. Infectious Diarrhea from Wilderness and Foreign Travel 63. Nutrition, Malnutrition, and Starvation 64. Dehydration, Rehydration, and Hyperhydration 65. Living off the Land 66. Seafood Toxidromes 67. Seafood Allergies


MARINE MEDICINE

68. Submersion Incidents 69. Emergency Oxygen Administration 70. Diving Medicine 71. Hyperbaric Medicine 72. Injuries from Nonvenomous Aquatic Animals 73. Envenomation by Aquatic Invertebrates 74. Envenomation by Aquatic Vertebrates 75. Aquatic Skin Disorders 76. Safety and Survival at Sea


TRAVEL, ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS, AND DISASTERS

77. Travel Medicine 78. Non-North American Travel and Exotic Diseases 79. Natural Disaster Management 80. Natural and Human-Made Hazards: Disaster Risk Management Issues


EQUIPMENT AND SPECIAL KNOWLEDGE

81. Wilderness Preparation, Equipment and Medical Supplies 82. Outdoor Clothing for Wilderness Professionals 83. Nonmedical Backcountry Equipment for Wilderness Professionals 84. Ropes and Knot Tying 85. Wilderness Navigation Techniques


SPECIAL POPULATIONS AND CONSIDERATIONS

86. Exercise, Conditioning, and Performance 87. Children in the Wilderness 88. Women in the Wilderness 89. Elders in the Wilderness 90. Persons with Special Needs and Disabilities 91. Wilderness and Endurance Events 92. Wilderness Medicine Education 93. Medical Liability and Wilderness Emergencies 94. The Ethics of Wilderness Medicine


THE WILDERNESS

95. The Changing Environment 96. Wilderness Management and Preservation 97. Aerospace Medicine Appendix: Drug Storage and Stability Index

Bibliographic details
Hardbound, 2336 pages, publication date: MAR-2007
ISBN-13: 978-0-323-03228-5
ISBN-10: 0-323-03228-1
Imprint: MOSBY

You can grab a torrent from the list HERE 418MB

Monday 16 March 2009

Aldi tools

Aldi seem to have a steady influx of home tools at the moment some of which i have bought. These tools are aimed at the home DIY enthusiast. Here's the list of my new toys all of which may still be in your local Aldi (descriptions from aldi web site). I'm very happy with them btw.
Update, they may look toyish but they do the job, i also added a few stickers over the power craft logos, they look a lot better already.



500W Bench Drill £41


Whizzing through wood and metal with pinpoint precision, this brilliant bench drill will make light work of all sorts of workshop tasks.
9 adjustable speeds (from 280-2350rpm)
16mm keyed chuck with safety guard
Drilling capacity: metal 16mm, wood 35mm
Fully-adjustable table with 0-45° left or right tilt
54mm clamp width
Sturdy cast-iron construction
Depth stop for precision drilling
Magnetic safety switch


240W Bench Grinder/Belt Sander £19.99


Dual-purpose system that will flatten/smooth out all sorts of imperfections in metal or woodwork pieces for a cleaner finish.
No load speed: 2950rpm
Grinding disc (for metal): 150 × 20 × 12.7mm
Abrasive grinding belt (fitted): 50 × 686mm (Grade: 150)
2 spare belts included – 50 × 686mm (Grade: 150)




204 Piece Drill Bit Set £19.99



40W Model Building and Engraving Set £10.69

Super-light, super-versatile tool for the dedicated model maker/arts and crafts enthusiast. It contains all you need to achieve a professional looking finish on a variety of creative projects. Includes 40 accessories for drilling, cutting, grinding, sanding, engraving and polishing.
Variable speed: 0-20,000rpm
Adaptor AC 230V, DC 18V
Transparent storage/carry case



1020W Angle Grinder £17.99


Metalwork, bricks, paving slabs, ceramic tiles, rusty rivets – slice through them all with ease.
1020 watts, 230V, 50Hz
2 diamond blades included
Safety goggles included


24V Cordless Hammer Drill £39.99
Versatile drill, including an all-purpose bit set, to tackle a range of jobs from masonry to metalwork.

24V/1.5Ah NiCad battery
2 mechanical speeds
Quick charger with LED load indication
Adjustable side handle
9 bits (plus bit holder)
Peacock keyless chuck (1.5-3mm)



Also bought extra grinding/cutting disks and other odd and ends, i have quite a few projects lined up which i will be posting here hopefully with video.

A greenpete success story

If your a fan of blades then watch this video, this guy has been making knifes for about a year (at time of making of video). He got started by watching the fantastic video from greenpete
and a year later he's making stunning blades like this.
I recommend you watch greenpetes video just to see how easy it is to make your very own knife, i recently bought all the tools he used but still need to get to the scrap yard. If i can make a knife half as good as this one then i'd be a very happy chappy.

The youtube page is HERE
DevilDwarfBladesmith

Wednesday 4 March 2009

Palmyra woman finds roses made from birch shavings 'so real'

PALMYRA, Mo. — Joyce Wagner knew about good, unique crafts -- she'd been buying them for years.
But the Palmyra resident never really made any of her own until last year when she spotted wooden roses at a fair in Fulton.
"People were walking by, and I thought 'Why aren't those wilting?' " Wagner said.
She tracked down the booth selling the long-stemmed roses and discovered that they were wooden, made from birch shavings.
Wagner bought eight dozen and gave them away, then decided to track down the supplier herself. Once she found the maker in Colorado, she ordered 3,200 the first time. She has placed similar orders three more times since June.


Wagner's venture with the roses, along with her other business of selling streak-free cleaning cloths, has proven so successful she's quit her full-time work. Every weekend, she heads somewhere for an event where she sells the roses.


Story from HERE

Saving Chile's southern wilderness

Charles Darwin wrote about the region during the voyage of the Beagle

It is not every day that a Wall Street bank finds itself in possession of a chunk of land 50 times the size of Manhattan, covered in pristine forest, windswept grassland and snow-capped mountains.

But that's the position Goldman Sachs found itself in, in 2002 when it bought a package of distressed debt and assets from a US company called Trillium.

The resulting conservation project in the very south of Chile has been hailed by the bank and its partners, a US-based NGO, as an example of how the public and private sectors can work together to safeguard the world's last remaining wildernesses.

Chilean environmentalists are more sceptical but, even so, have largely applauded the project.

The story of what is now known as the Karukinka nature reserve dates back to the 1990s when Trillium bought land on Tierra del Fuego - a cluster of inhospitable islands between Chile and Argentina - clinging to the southernmost tip of South America.

The company planned to use the land for logging and wanted to cut down the lenga - a type of beech tree found only in this part of the world.

Environmental groups opposed the project and it eventually failed.

That was when Goldman Sachs stepped in, buying up Trillium's assets, including the land.

"It's not often that you're in a position where you buy a security and learn that you have 680,000 acres of land in Tierra del Fuego," says Tracy Wolstencroft, head of Goldman Sachs' Environmental Markets group.

"The more we realised what we had the more we realised how unique this property was."

The bank considered selling the land but realised it would face the same opposition as Trillium had.

So it took what some environmentalists now regard as a radical and enlightened step - it gave the land away to a New York-based environmental group, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).

Full story HERE

Nature defies the Big Freeze and heralds spring

Published Date:
02 March 2009
By Richard Morris
Ignore the cold snaps and big freezes - spring is on its way.
According to a recent nature survey bumble bees have been spotted here in 1066 County. Wildlife recorders have also logged birds building nests, snowdrops and frogspawn - all signs that spring is sprung.

However, according to one wildlife expert, it is not necessarily good news - especially with more cold weather predicted.

Shaun Nixon, manager for the Nature's Calendar, said: "The timing of natural events is one of the most responsive aspects of the natural world to warming, so it is an important indicator of change."

"There will be variations year on year, however, if we look back over the past 30 years we can see a marked advancement of spring, up to two weeks for insects and a week for plants.

"The fundamental concerns thrown up by spring's gradual advance are that food chains also come under pressure or even break down and species fooled by warmer weather into activity, blossoming or breeding can very vulnerable and can get caught out by the sort of freeze not uncommon in March."


As always this story was stolen from HERE

Maple syrup producers wait on Mother Nature

MONCTON - As David Briggs trudges into his forest of sugar maples, he thinks out loud about the coming syrup season.

"We can only hope it's not like last year," he said. "Not that there's much we can do about it - other than hope."

His boots break fresh holes in the snow around hundreds of trees, signalling the beginning of a new season.

New Brunswick ranks third in the world in maple syrup production and is home to the country's largest organic and conventional syrup producers.

Some of the province's 112 maple syrup makers already have spent months tapping their trees and setting up lines of plastic tubing in preparation for just a few weeks of production that may begin any day now.

They are praying that this year the weather will co-operate.

Two straight seasons of foundering production has cost the industry millions, spiking prices and decimating any reserve of syrup around the world.

"I mean 2007 was bad, but 2008 was miserable," Yvon Poitras, general manager of the New Brunswick Maple Syrup Association, said.

"It was the worst year in 35 years of production. We didn't even produce 50 per cent of normal production."

Canada accounts for 85 per cent of the world's production of maple syrup, the majority of it coming from Quebec. Each year the industry prefers to have a reserve of at least 30 per cent of its product to meet higher demands, Poitras said.

But there is currently virtually no reserve.

"If we don't get a good season we're going to be in big, big trouble," he said. "There are no reserves left anywhere. There is a lack of product all over the world."

Sap drips from maple trees when temperatures fluctuate from -5"‚C at night to 5"‚C during the day, usually beginning in mid-March.

Last year, snow storms buried tubing and forced producers to spend thousands of dollars clearing obstructions.

When the season finally came, it lasted only four days before temperatures turned drastically warm, ruining the sap season.

"We thought we had it made last year. The old guys were saying it was going to be a great season, and then nothing," he said. "We depend so much on Mother Nature that it's unbelievable.

"Everyone's got their fingers crossed, their legs crossed and everything else crossed to see what Mother Nature is going to dump on us this year."

New Brunswick can produce more than four million pounds of maple syrup each year, originating from more than two million tree taps.

That ranks behind Quebec and Vermont.

Poitras said the industry as a whole lost more than $5 million last year.

Even though syrup producers have had a difficult time of late, the industry could easily grow bigger. Poitras said his association is working with the province to utilize more Crown land that is heavily covered with maples.

New Brunswick is home to the largest single producer with 168,000 taps near Saint-Quentin. It is also home to a producer in Bath with 110,000 taps for organic syrup.

"Those are two things we love to boast about," Poitras said. " But if the weather doesn't co-operate, they may be the biggest, but the biggest of nothing in not much."

Gus Hargrove, owner of Canadian Organic Maple Co. Ltd., of Bath agrees.

His business has tapped into a growing sugar market, as an organic trend steers followers away from the refined substance. Hargrove now has an international market that spans Germany and China.

"The demand actually opened up some of the market for us, but it would be nice to have more to supply it," he said. "They seek you out because of it (a decrease in supply), especially in the last two years.

"But we're optimistic because we have had a couple bad years, so hey, third time lucky."

Briggs, the fifth generation in his family of maple syrup producers from the Moncton area, said there's no way to know what this season will have in store.

Regardless, the industry has served his family well. He plans to expand Rocky Mountain Maples to include a year-round business in Riverview to sell his maple syrup, butter, cream, candy, barbeque sauce and classic taffy.

"There's absolutely nothing we can do other than get ready for it," Briggs said.

"But this is a growing industry. Producers from all over the province are growing their operations."

Story stolen from HERE

The Old Lady's Camping Trip

Tuesday 3 March 2009

Viktor Schauberger


An interesting video which is a good introduction to Viktor Schauberger don't be put of by the look of presenter (Tom Brown I think - not THE Tom Brown Jnr).

A farm for the future

This programme seems to be recieving a lot of positive reviews on the net so i'm downloading it at the mo. It caught my eye as it mentioned forest gardening which is a passion of mine at the moment (will be posting links to some great videos on this soon)

Wildlife film maker Rebecca Hosking investigates how to transform her family's farm in Devon into a low energy farm for the future, and discovers that nature holds the key.

With her father close to retirement, Rebecca returns to her family's wildlife-friendly farm in Devon, to become the next generation to farm the land. But last year's high fuel prices were a wake-up call for Rebecca. Realising that all food production in the UK is completely dependent on abundant cheap fossil fuel, particularly oil, she sets out to discover just how secure this oil supply is.

Alarmed by the answers, she explores ways of farming without using fossil fuel. With the help of pioneering farmers and growers, Rebecca learns that it is actually nature that holds the key to farming in a low-energy future.


The following quote is from HERE
It offered a powerful combination of looking back and looking forward, underpinned all the time by her clear deep affection she has for the farm itself. and the deep respect she has for both her father and his work. It was surprisingly personal and moving. For me, the proof of this programme was a visit yesterday from my father in law, not usually one to be interested in such things, who had seen the programme, loved it, and told me excitedly that he now knew that hedgerows could be productive, and that fossil fuels are running out. He was very impressed with the agroforestry side of things, and I suspect that many people also watched it and found themselves similarly having Eureka moments as regards some of the insights about soil, ecosystems and the idea that food production need not necessarily involve huge tractors and lashings of diesel. It was also very powerful for people to start to realise that food production and biodiversity are not necessarily, as is often believed, mutually exclusive


You can still watch this on the BBC site but only for a limited time so here are a couple of torrent links to download it.

DEMONOID 185MB .MOV
MININOVA 571MB .AVI
You can watch a short clip HERE (Trivia- I think the refinary in the background is Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire where the worlds biggest LNG plant operates)



UPDATE since watching

Sorry but i watched this and found it to be mostly a pile of crap.

First of it’s presented by some anoying female who as it turns out is the usual London career type who then decides to head out to country (i know she was from there anyway but she still acts like all the others).

She then starts bleating on about oil and how it effects farmers and all the doom and gloom that comes with it, fair enough but i got the impression she was telling herself that more than telling us as if she was just learning this herself and what little knowledge she does tell is hardly unkown anyway (unless you lived in the London bubble for years).

Now to the worst part of all. She sets up a so called live internet conversation with a bloke in the USA (remarkable image clarity and streaming they get down in Devon) which saves us TV licence payers the cost of her flying out there BUT after moaning about the fuel crisis she then jumps into her Land rover (not the most fuel effecient motor) then drives from Devon to SW Wales then onto a ferry (she doesnt say but i’m certain they dont use sails or oars) then drives to some point in Ireland to chat to some bloke for 2 minutes. Then on the ferry on the way back she’s moaning about the resources that went into the sandwich she just bought, it was at this point that i was going to switch off, she is a complete idiot and treating us the same.

But i held out as I have a strong passionate interest in forest gardening and permaculture. It’s only after she returns from Ireland that it finaly gets interesting, it wasnt very indepth but it was good to see her taking it seriously (in her own wishy washy way) but more importantly it was good to see more exposure for this subject.
It did make me wonder if she was going to do something similar herself on her dad’s farm which i hope she does, maybe a follow up episode but without all the nonsense.

England's largest forest takes shape on the edge of St Albans

When and if a plan to create an 850-acre forest on the edge of St Albans gets the go ahead it will create the largest new native woodland the people of England have ever seen. Neil Skinner joined residents on a guided tour on Saturday.

It's a development of immense size and scale; far in advance of anything the area has witnessed before – a project which dwarfs any supermarket or housing estate past or present.

Why, then, has it created such limited local opposition and why is the £8.5 million project necessary at all? Why spend so much money on a project many of us won’t live to witness in its full glory?

The UK, apparently, languishes at the bottom of the European woodland league, with a mere 12 per cent coverage compared to 44 per cent in other parts of the continent. Extricate from this the vast wooded areas in Scotland the comparative poverty of England becomes clear; a poverty not just of aesthetic beauty but of fragile woodland species – 78 of which are thought to on the verge of extinction.


Full story HERE

Plant diseases threaten woodland

They are Phytophthora kernoviae and Phytophthora ramorum.

Rhododendrons, a carrier of both diseases, are likely to be removed in woodland to combat the problem.

The flowering shrubs, popular as an ornamental species in many gardens, also grow wild in wooded areas and an area of the New Forest has already been cordoned off to allow rhododendrons to be cut down and burned.

Phytophthora kernoviae, first found in the south-west of England in 2003, reached Scotland five years later. It attacks and kills many trees and shrubs, including the oak and beech trees which make up so much of Britain's woodlands.


Full story HERE


(The evil Rhododendron, coming to a woodland near you soon)

Sumatran tiger faces extinction as forest habitat shrinks

The Sumatran tiger is in danger of becoming the first major mammal to become extinct in the 21st century, as villagers on the Indonesian island fight a deadly war with the magnificent but ferocious predator.

At least four tigers, and nine people, have been killed in the past month alone, as the shrinking of Sumatra’s already depleted forests brings an increase in attacks on farmers, hunters and illegal loggers.

With fewer than 400 of the creatures estimated to be left in the wild, the Sumatran tiger is classified as critically endangered, the most vulnerable of all the six surviving tiger subspecies.

The fact that several victims of the recent attacks have been devoured by the tigers, which usually have little taste for human flesh, suggests how hungry and desperate they are becoming, as economic exploitation of their habitat confines them in ever smaller and more impoverished patches of jungle.


Full story HERE

The forests of southern Korea yield a prized elixir

HADONG, South Korea: At this time of year, when frogs begin stirring from their winter sleep and woodpeckers drum for newly active insects, villagers climb the hills around here to collect a treasured elixir - sap from the maple tree known as gorosoe.

"It's important to have the right weather," said Park Jeom Sik, 56, toting plastic tubs and a drill up a moss-covered slope. "The temperature should drop below freezing at night and then rise to a warm, bright, windless day. If it's rainy, windy or cloudy, the trees won't give."

For centuries, southern Korean villagers like Park have been tapping the gorosoe, or "tree good for the bones."

Unlike North Americans who collect maple sap to boil down into syrup, Korean villagers and their growing number of customers prefer the sap itself, which they credit with a wide range of health benefits.

In this they are not alone. Some people in Japan and northern China drink maple sap, and birch sap has its fans in Russia and other parts of northern Europe. But no one surpasses southern Koreans in their enthusiasm for sap, which they can consume in prodigious quantities
.

Full article HERE

One third of Britons cannot identify trees

A third of Britons cannot identify the nation's most famous types of trees, according to a new study.
Researchers found that when it comes to telling the difference between an English oak or a sycamore, many of us are stumped.

One in 20 people questioned could not name any of Britain's common trees.

Even the horse chestnut, which has produced conkers for generations of schoolboys, is a mystery to nearly seven in ten people, said the study by UK firm Forest Holidays.

It took a mixed sample of 250 adults and showed them pictures of 10 of Britain's most popular types of tree and asked them to name them.


Full story HERE

To be honest i suspect it's a lot more than a third.