by Mark Henderson, science editor

“Times Online” Aug. 21, 2009

It has long been a staple of adventure stories: the hero, lost in the wilderness, painstakingly tries to find his way back to civilization only to stumble across his own tracks and discover that he has been walking in circles.

When nothing looks familiar, and every direction seems to be the same, STOP and think about what to do next!

Now the popular belief that people in unfamiliar surroundings tend to walk round in circles has been confirmed by scientists.

Experiments in a German forest and the Sahara desert in Tunisia have shown that lost people double back on themselves without meaning to unless they have a marker, such as the Sun or Moon, to guide their way.

“The stories about people who end up walking in circles when lost are true,” said Jan Souman, of the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany, who led the research.

“People cannot walk in a straight line if they do not have absolute references, such as a tower or a mountain in the distance, or the Sun or Moon, and often end up walking in circles.”

The scientists, whose work is published in the journal Current Biology, also debunked a popular explanation that has been advanced to explain walking in circles.

It has been suggested that people might veer in one direction because one leg is slightly longer or stronger than the other. Over time such small differences could cause somebody to walk in a circle.

The new research, however, in which people were blindfolded and asked to walk in a straight line, found that while they ultimately walked in circles, they did not do so reliably in any particular direction. The subjects sometimes veered left and sometimes right, which would not happen if differential stride length or power was a factor.

Dr. Souman said that it was more likely that circular walking patterns tended to emerge from increasing uncertainty about direction. “Small random errors in the various sensory signals that provide information about walking direction add up over time, making what a person perceives to be straight ahead drift away from the true straight ahead direction,” he said.

In the study the research team took six volunteers to the Bienwald forest, in southern Germany, and asked them to walk in as straight a line as they could while their progress was monitored using GPS devices. Four volunteers walked on a cloudy day when the Sun was hidden and two in bright sunshine.

The four who walked under clouds all moved in circles and three of them crossed their own paths repeatedly without noticing. The two volunteers who were able to see the Sun walked in straight lines, except for 15 minutes when it was obscured by cloud.

A similar pattern occurred when three other volunteers were tested in the Sahara desert in southern Tunisia.

Two volunteers, who walked during the day and could see the Sun, veered off course but did not walk in circles. The third, who walked at night, kept to a straight line when the Moon was visible but doubled back on himself when it disappeared behind clouds.

The team is planning to investigate the phenomenon further in the laboratory by asking volunteers to walk through a virtual-reality forest on a specially designed treadmill.

http://www.survivalcommonsense.com

The best firestarting system can also be the cheapest and the materials are the easiest to find at any drug or grocery store.

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This Boy Scout Hot-Spark and a prescription bottle filled with cotton balls and petroleum jelly makes a reliable firestarting method that is cheap enough to be placed in all survival kits.

by Leon Pantenburg

After extensive testing, my nomination for the best overall survival firestarting method is cotton balls, slathered with petroleum jelly, combined with a magnesium or flint stick. I ran across this method several years ago at a Peter Kummerfeldt seminar at the Deschutes Fairground Sportsmen show.

Kummerfeldt demonstrated the method at his booth, and it looked so easy, I figured there had to be a catch. So, I got the materials and tested it myself, then had some of the scouts from Boy Scout Troop 18 in Bend, OR. wring out the system.

Everybody likes the system because of  its reliability. There is nothing to break, it requires no fuel, and temperature has no affect. But an additional benefit is how cheap it is to produce!

Here’s how you can make one of these firemaking kits.

• Get a locking cap, waterproof prescription bottle. These days, everybody has a prescription for something, and the meds usually come in a small, plastic pill bottle. The bottles with the snap-and-bayonet, waterproof top work very well for storing the cotton balls, and probably won’t cost anything. You can also use an empty 35mm film plastic container, or a standard waterproof matchbox. I use all of these containers, since I carry the cotton balls/petroleum jelly firestarter in all my survival kits. Just be careful with any snap-off or non-locking cap – if they’re easy to get off, they may come apart in your pack!
• Cotton balls: Get extra-large, 100 percent cotton. They generally cost less than a penny each. Don’t waste your time with dryer lint: the material  is unreliable and the savings cost is not worth consideration.
• Petroleum jelly: I paid $1.99 for a 13-ounce jar at the local department store. Many of the lip balm sticks will also work with this system, so experiment at home.
• Magnesium or flint stick: One of my favorites, the Boy Scout
  

  Flint or magnesium sticks come in different sizes. Find a size that is handy, so you'll take it with you! The keychain size, center, is a good choice for everyday carry.

  Hot-Spark, costs about $2.50 at the Scout store. You can buy bigger, more expensive models, but the scout version does the trick. I have the smaller sticks on zipper fobs, key chains, and in every survival kit I own. Your Swiss Army knife can become a better survival knife if you attach a Hot-Spark to the split ring on the handle.

• Label with directions: Put a label on each container with what is inside, and how to use it. You may not need the reminder, but then again, you might be injured, disabled or unconscious, and someone else might have to build that life-saving fire. Make their job easier by including simple instructions.

I use a standard Avery 5160 1″x2-5/8″ labels, with Wordperfect software in the “labels” dropdown.  Use 11 point, Aerial type, and this spacing, and all the information fits nicely.

On the labels, type:

Firestarter: Cotton balls and

petroleum jelly. To use: Remove

pinch of firestarter, fluff and light.

This dry cattail fuzz can be used as a firestarter if you infuse it with petroleum jelly.

I include my website name and give them away at events. These containers, filled with cotton balls and petroleum jelly, are fantastic promotional give-aways and cost pennies. Scouts can make up a bunch, and give them out at their next campout or public gathering. I give the containers out when I go cross-country skiing or snowshoeing as a public service – it’s scary how often this firestarter is the only survival gear some people have!

Total cost of the complete firestarter kit, with Hot-Spark, is about $2.75 to $3! If you opt to buy  a waterproof match container for the cotton balls, that will set you back another $2-$3. You’re still looking at a complete firemaking system for about five bucks!

Carry this combination in all your survival kits. When you need to make a fire, pull out a pinch, fluff it out and strike a spark onto the cotton ball with the flint stick. If the wood is damp, and the tinder in short supply, use a whole cotton ball. My experiments show that a cotton ball gobbed with petroleum jelly will burn for several minutes.

The cotton balls and petroleum jelly have another use. On a Boy Scout 50-miler hike a few years back, I started to get a blister on my heel. I took out my cotton ball firestarter, and rubbed the hot spot with the petroleum jelly. No blister formed!

When it comes to your survival kit, you decide how much you want to invest. Personally, I want the best equipment available for me and my family, and price is not a consideration.

But prepping or making multiple survival kits can be expensive. Find the areas – like this one – where you can cut costs without reducing quality, durability or safety.

Then, invest the money you saved on items you can’t compromise on, such as  boots, a survival knife, sleeping bags, tents, navigation gear, etc.

Use common sense in all of this. Find the best, most reliable systems for your survival kits, then practice, research and decide how they can best serve you.

http://www.survivalcommonsense.com