I believe this incident has been alluded to briefly in other threads. It doesn't look good for the four who are missing; they are evidently well equipped and experienced

Mount Rainier National Park (WA)
Search For Four Missing People Scaled Back

On Monday, the seventh day of the search for four people in two missing parties on Mountain Rainier, the mountain came out of the clouds for the first time, providing perfect weather for extensive air and ground operations. In spite of a major search effort, the parties were not located. With the return of winter weather and the odds of a favorable outcome declining daily, operations are being scaled back and will transition back to the park today. Investigators will continue to work on an in-depth investigation, and operations are shifting to an extended limited continuous search. Family liaisons worked with four separate families throughout the week. The consulate provided translators to assist in overcoming language barriers with family from Korea. Ninety-one people were assigned to the search over the course of the incident, which was managed by the Western Incident Management Team (Denny Ziemann IC). The team took over management of the search on January 21st, providing assistance to a park staff depleted by the impacts of the tragic shooting of Ranger Margaret Anderson.

Interesting (and graphic) approach to prepping a squirrel for the stew pot. I've never done this (my experience is with chickens, deer, and beef cattle).

Is this a good method? Would it also work for rabbits?

-Doug, eyeing a pesky squirrel on his bird feeder

From the article:
**Disclaimer: This post contains a graphic step-by-step depiction of the skinning, slicing, and disemboweling of a real squirrel. If you’re eating, have always felt a deep affinity for woodland creatures, or faint at the sight of dismembered squirrel gonads, please skip this post. Seriously. You can watch this video of an adorable water skiing squirrel instead.**

http://artofmanliness.com/2012/01/16/how-to-field-dress-a-squirrel/

We had a cave rescue the other evening:

Fortunately, the cavers accompanying the victim were able to facilitate most of the rescue, since between the Montgomery County USAR Team, Washington County Special Operations Team and our team (Frederick County ATR Team); we only had a few rescuers that were small enough to even attempt entering the cave system.

The news media indicated that rescue crews freeded the man, when in fact it was his fellow cavers that did most of the work.

Pete

Cave Rescue - Herald News

Cave Rescue - Herald News Update

Cave Rescue Photos

Cave Rescue Video

Cave Rescue Video

A British survival enthusiast attempting to live off the land for a full year was recently found dead in Scotland. He lasted perhaps a few weeks in the wild. I wouldn't mind trying a night out or a weekend with a minimal kit but why did this guy think that he could do a full year in the wilderness. Heck, even Bear stays overnight in hotels when he is doing his survival shows! By the look of the picture, it doesn't appear that there is much shelter and few trees in the area he was "surviving".

A man found dead in a remote mountain hut was an adventurer who had planned a year-long Bear Grylls-style survival challenge in the Scottish wilderness. David Austin, 29, from Derby, was found dead in a 'bothy' by a track worker near Corrour, a remote railway station in Highland Perthshire, on December 31 at 9.50am. His body is believed to have been lying there for several weeks when it was discovered.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...untain-hut.html

So, it turns out that the human brain will actively prevent itself from storing information about negative future events.
From the article:


The only people who don't have this "glitch" are those who are clinically depressed. Hmmm, I wonder what that says about ETS members?
This also explains why it is so hard to convince non-believers to prepare. Their brains are blocking acknowledgement that bad stuff could happen.

I explain the original Nature article below. Most of the paper revolved around the statistical analysis of their results. This was done to show why they believe what the test results mean. Their statistical analysis appears sound which strongly supports their interpetation of the results.

What they found (simplified for laymen): the learning centers of the human brain will readily and actively "update" their world-view if their world-view is shown to be less optimistic than reality. However, when the brain's world-view is revealed to be more optimistic than reality, the brain shows a much lower willingness to update its world-view to the less positive view.

How they measured this (again, simplified): It was more than just asking the subjects "how likely is this event?" several months apart. The researchers tracked the Brain Oxygen Level-Dependence (BOLD) during these tests. BOLD is an MRI technique which basically shows what parts of the brain are processing data. As expected, the areas that became active during these tests were the areas generally considered to be the problem solving and memory sections, though they tracked BOLD for the full brain.

Results: When the actual "probability of threat" values were revealed to the subjects their brains responded in one of two ways:
1. If the subject had over-estimated the threat, their brain lit up with activity as it processed this information, with areas associated with analysis and memory becoming highly active.
2. If the subject had under-estimated the threat, their brains showed a much smaller increase in activitely across the board but especially in the memory-storage areas.

This reduced brain activity when assimilating negative information occured in 100% of the test subjects. However, the level of reduction was able to be directly correlated with the subject's overall level of optimism. Those subjects which had the most optimistic view of life had the lowest brain responses to negative information. The two subjects which were clinically depressed had the least amount of difference in brain activity between processing positive and negative information.

Overall, the paper does a really good job of proving (to me, at least) that the human brain does actually ignore negative information. This explains why it's so hard to convince people they should be prepared. Their brains actively suppress the true likelyhood of something bad happening.