Survival

A Japanese hiker slipped, was knocked unconscious and then survived 24 days without food or water. That's not supposed to be possible. What survival instincts fuel us through dire straits?

By Charles W. Bryant

Toxic tree frogs, poisonous plants, malaria-carrying mosquitoes. You get the picture: The jungle is no place to get lost. How will you make it out of this lushness alive?

By Charles W. Bryant

Machete, knife, gun, mosquito net. They would all be plenty useful in the jungle. But there's one survival tool that beats out all the rest. What is it?

By Charles W. Bryant

You surface from a scuba dive to find that the boat ditched you. Are you a dead man? Between the sharks and the dehydration, we've got to admit -- it doesn't look good.

By Charles W. Bryant

A summer squall stirs up the ocean. When the boat bangs into a wave, you're bounced off the vessel and into the choppy water. What do you do now?

By Charles W. Bryant

Most likely, Leonardo DiCaprio won't be aboard to help you evacuate safely. So, it's best you have your own strategy in mind. What do you do when the ship goes down?

By Charles W. Bryant

The Bermuda Triangle is an area in the Atlantic Ocean that has baffled scientists due to the high number of ship and plane crashes in the area. Delve into the disasters and the lore of this mysterious location.

You're hoping by tomorrow the search and rescue teams will locate you. In the meantime, you set up shelter for night. But night never comes. Is your mind playing tricks on you?

By Cristen Conger

Does the thought of sucking down larvae trigger your gag reflex? Then you may not hack it in the wild. Insects are an excellent source of protein. Pry up a rock and you've got dinner.

By Cristen Conger

Skin a dead animal. Smash its leg bone into a blade. And use its tendons to tie that blade to a handle. Sound gruesome? That's how you'd make a knife in the wild.

By Cristen Conger

In the wilderness, one of these weapons will help you send out a distress signal, keep warm, build a shelter and not drown. The other is relatively worthless.

By Cristen Conger

The sun beats down and your skin burns. Your parched mouth begs for water, and you fear a sandstorm is on its way. You're stranded in the desert. How will you survive?

By Charles W. Bryant

If you eat hemlock you could die, and poison ivy isn't good for anyone. But dandelions make a nice salad. How do you tell the plants you can eat from the plants you can't?

By Charles W. Bryant

The number of missing people in the state of Alaska is twice the national average. Why do so many get lost?

By Cristen Conger

You might not look at a tarantula and think, "Yum." But if you were in a survival situation with only bugs to eat, how would you know which ones are safe?

By Charles W. Bryant

Let's say you're lost in the wilderness. Rather than guess which berries aren't poisonous, you take down a rabbit. If you're too famished for cooking, will eating it raw be disastrous for your health?

By Cristen Conger

There's north and then there's true north. Find out how stabbing a stick in the dirt to make a shadow can help you find the true north.

By Cristen Conger

When wind and water steal heat from your body, your internal temperature plummets. Find out why you'll need more than just some mittens and a stocking cap to prevent hypothermia.

By Cristen Conger

Imagine being trapped in a submarine 3,000 feet below the surface of the ocean. It's not 20,000 leagues under the sea, but it's too far for someone to swim down and save you. That's where deep-sea rescue comes in.

By Charles W. Bryant

Gandhi fasted for three weeks while he was in his 70s, but he had water to drink. How long can the average person last without food or drink?

By Charles W. Bryant

You can't control the weather -- but you can prepare for it. We'll take you through 10 ways to survive a snowstorm, from whether to pick mittens or gloves to how you should shovel snow.

By Charles W. Bryant

You may associate smoke signals with Native Americans in old Westerns, but they aren't totally a thing of the past. Find out why the Boy Scouts still teach kids how to make them -- and how you can send some yourself.

By Charles W. Bryant

You've seen it on the news -- a hiker goes missing, and the woods swarm with helicopters, dogs and volunteer searchers. How do search-and-rescue teams explore the depths of the sea and sift through piles of rubble to find survivors?

By Charles W. Bryant

Sometimes a three-hour tour turns into a much longer trip than planned. Your ship's gone down and now you're on a desert island with only the remnants of your life raft. Now what?

By Charles W. Bryant

A plane crash is every air traveler's nightmare. But there are things you can do to better your chances of making it out alive. We've uncovered some plane crash myths and the real-life stories of survivors.

By Charles W. Bryant