This Will Kill You: A Guide to the Ways in Which We Go by H.P. Newquist, Rich Maloof
My rating: 4/5 cats
REMEMBER WHEN I USED TO WIN BOOKS??
i win!! yay for goodreads contests! watching the mails…
some hand-picked excerpts, selected for specific pals with specific fears/hangups:
michael:
Tuberculosis is spread, like pneumonia, via infected water droplets that you inhale when an infected person breathes, talks, spits, or otherwise propels those water droplets your way.
alfonso:
Coming in bright blues, greens, reads, oranges, and yellows, with splotches, stripes, and even polka dots in a little body about the size of a AA battery, the poison dart frog simply oozes cuteness. It also oozes the deadliest poison in the world.
dana:
Undetected, gangrene has close to a 100 percent kill rate. If detected early enough, however, gangrene can be treated, although amputation of the infected area is one of the common cures.
connor:
Once your body stops moving, the alligator drags your corpse back to dry land where it proceeds to tear large sections away from whatever remains. For anyone who is not quite dead, and has only passed out from near-asphyxiation, this is about as close to living hell as it gets right here on Earth.
connor2:
A dog mauling will kill you in less than ten minutes. Rabies will kill you a week to ten days after symptoms show up, which can be about two weeks after the actual bite occurred.
proust:
Odds for the average person getting fatal insomnia are one in 33 million. If it’s part of your family DNA, however, the odds are closer to fifty-fifty.
me:
On average in the United States, someone dies in a house fire every 162 minutes.
so a little something for everyone. except greg—strangely nothing about deadly birds. maybe volume two…
p.s. jen:
The guinea worm lays its eggs in ponds and water supplies throughout central Africa. Once deposited in the water, the eggs are eaten by tiny fleas, which are so small they get swallowed with drinking water. Once inside your stomach, your digestive juices dissolve the fleas, but not the worm eggs inside them. The now-exposed eggs then nestle inside your intestines. Living comfortably, they remain in place until they grow to be about three feet long. This takes about a year. At maturity, female worms mate with males and create new eggs of their own. However, they need to lay these eggs in water, and start the slow process of burrowing through your intestines and organs in order to get to your skin. Once the worms reach your skin, or an eyeball—but before they break through to the outside—they release an acid that causes your skin to blister and bubble in order to create an exit route out of your body. These blisters are extremely painful, and as you try to ease the burn by washing them with water, the guinea worm bursts out of your body in a single, spaghetti-like strand.
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