Watch out for deadly spiders!

Summer is one of the peak months for deadly spider bites. 18% of all 32 U.S. deaths, tabulated by the CDC 2002 through 2004 from venomous spider bites, occurred in the month of July. The spiders to look out for are the hobo, brown recluse and black widow. Information on what they look like can be found on the NIOSH website HERE. I've found two black widow spiders at my house. One was living under the roof and the other was hiding in the rose garden. Not only are they nasty for eating their lovers after mating, they make the ugliest spider webs I've ever seen. Worst of all, their venom is 15 times stronger than a rattlesnakes. More information on these unpleasant creatures can be found on the National Geographic website HERE.

photo from NIOSH Sphere: Related Content

Deadly Sea Monsters

Photo by Roy Caldwell; calacademy.org

Quirk, the publisher who brought you the popular book Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has a trailer here for their Quirk Classics #2 Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. Contrary to appearances, most octopus are harmless, except for the Hapalochlaena lunulata which resides in tide pools in the Pacific ocean. It is one of the most venomous animals in the world with a toxicity 10,000 times greater than cyanide. The odds of getting killed by one, however, are nearly nil.

For more info on deadly sea creatures, see the Cause of Death book chapter on accidental deaths by Flora and Fauna and check out the California Academy of Sciences website and Australia's Great Barrier reef website on what to do if you're bitten by one Sphere: Related Content

Michael Jackson R.I.P.

The world has lost another gifted performer prematurely with the death of Michael Jackson at age 50. Although his death appears to have been accidental, and may or may not relate to use of the surgical anesthetic Propofol for insomnia, until the autopsy results are in what killed him is not yet known. What is clear is that it was too early for a male living in the U.S. According to the CIA World Factbook, the average U.S. male's life expectancy in 2009 is 75.65 years, 25 years more than Michael's life. Of course, if Michael Jackson had lived in Afghanistan, his life would have been longer than normal, given the average life expectancy of an Afghany male at 44.47 years.

I was lucky enough to meet the "King of Pop" at a Lucasfilm picnic in 1982 (as photographed above) several years before he starred in the short 17 minute George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola 3-D film collaboration Captain Eo for Walt Disney Attractions in 1986. He was clearly an exceptional talent who will be missed. Sphere: Related Content

Did you know insomnia can kill you?

According to the book Cause of Death, 3 people died from insomnia in 2001. Having recently experienced a bout of insomnia myself, which resulted in my canceling an event I was looking forward to, I did a little more research on this silent killer. According to the National Institute of Health (NIH), there are two types of insomnia. But there's an even scarier type called Fatal Familial Insomnia which is caused by a prion similar to that which is responsible for mad cow disease. In the case of insomnia, however, as with many other afflictions, the cure is often worse than the disease. Many more people die accidentally from drug overdoses trying to "cure" their insomnia (and other disorders) to the point that accidental drug overdoses are now the second cause of unintentional injury, second only to motor-vehicle crashes. There's an interesting podcast from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) here on that. So, having thrown away my sleeping pills, I may need to give up eating beef as well! Sphere: Related Content

Bed vs Bathtub Phobia

Sphere: Related Content

What Are The Odds Of Dying At The Beach?

Sphere: Related Content

Alcohol, Accidents and Holidays

Although more people tend to die in car crashes during the summer months (667 deaths over the 4th of July weekend in 2005 vs 563 over Thanksgiving that year), holidays are always a good time to be especially careful about drinking and driving. Young men age 15-24 experience the highest number of car crash deaths and, despite the fact that alcohol-related traffic crash fatalities have gone down from 60% in 1982 to 40% in 2004, alcohol continues to be a major cause.

If a car accident doesn't kill a young male drinking driver, his excessive alcohol consumption will start to take its toll in other ways within a few years time.

The American male hit hardest from alcohol-related causes is the Native American Indian. Between ages 25-44, American Indian males die from chronic liver disease and cirrhosis 10.3 times more than Asian Americans (who have the lowest death rates), experience accidental deaths 5.7 times more and commit suicide 2.1 times more.

Thanksgiving, to me, means thanks for this beautiful land we live in, which was inhabited first by our fellow Native Americans. My Thanksgiving wish is that they don't end the holidays dead.

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism for traffic crash info:
http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/Resources/DatabaseResources/QuickFacts/TrafficCrashes/crash01.htm

CDC for deaths from select causes by month in 2005:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/MortFinal2005_Worktable304.pdf

Cause of Death book chapters on Accidents, Suicide and Bad Plumbing for lots more
http://www.amazon.com/Cause-Death-Perfect-Little-Guide/dp/1416554793/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1227555161&sr=1-1

Sphere: Related Content

Which kills more: a spider bite or lightning strike?

Between the 2 known species of spiders with enough poison toxin to kill you in the U.S. (the brown recluse and the female black widow), there were 58 deaths from 1999 through 2005, or an average of 8 deaths per year. In the same 7 year period, there were 365 deaths resulting from lightning. Out of the 46 lightning deaths that occurred in 2004, 10 were in Florida, the state with the highest number. Sphere: Related Content

Your parents always warned you to look both ways ...

So, you’re alone, depressed, in the house with a loaded gun (16,750 deaths in the U.S. by suicide with a firearm in 2004) and you decide to go for a walk or a jog to lift your sprits, maybe with a new tune from Radiohead on your iPod and you, or the driver you share the road with, fails to pay attention.

BOOM!

You’re one of 5,976 pedestrians who died in 2004, most as the result of being hit by a car, truck or van.

According to a recent article in the New York Times, road runner rage is on the rise. So, look out, especially between 6-9 pm, the deadliest time to be a U.S. pedestrian!

http://www.radiohead.com/deadairspace/

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/health/nutrition/06fitness.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&oref=sloginhttp://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/health/nutrition/06fitness.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Sphere: Related Content