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If a dog can stay alive under these conditions, couldn't a human? That's an important question, because there are still 18,000 tsunami and earthquake victims missing in Japan, with little hope for their survival.

How did this dog stay alive? While dogs and humans can survive for three weeks without food, they can't go longer than a couple of days without water. Floating in the ocean off the coast of Japan, the dog was surrounded by salt water, but like a human in the same situation, that wouldn't have kept him alive — according to the Department of Energy's Ask a Scientist website:

Humans can't drink salt water because the kidneys can only make urine that is less salty than salt water. Therefore, to get rid of all the excess salt taken in by drinking salt water, you have to urinate more water than you drank, so you die of dehydration.

It must have been a rainy three weeks aboard this ragtag vessel, where small collected pools of fresh water must have kept the dog alive.

It's probably too late for more survivors to be found, but it's not too late for you to help earthquake and tsunami victims in Japan. Here's how.