Dancing cats and fermented walrus

[wraithfodder]

 Yes, I read the oddest books. I'm back on my non-fiction book jag, having just completed Food, Sex and Salmonella: Why Our Food is Making Us Sick (Dr. David Waltner-Toews)  which has no sex in it, by the way, but plenty of information on food poisoning. I had no idea Canada had had so many outbreaks (this is a Canadian publication) and apparently fermented walrus and/or seal flippers can leave you with a nasty case of botulism! Meanwhile, back in the late 1950s, there was a horrid case of mercury poisoning in Japan, and the disease was commonly referred to as "dancing cat disease" as when cats got mercury poisoning, they were staggering, running or collapsing. Ouch. But, if you like non-fiction medical type books on the subject, I recommend it.

Now, onward to the HUGE color hardback called The Private Lives of Spiders (Paul Hillyard) which has big, gorgeous shots of various arachnids. I'll cease and desist here, for the arachnophobes who may be reading my LJ ;)

But shall also take a break to read a whole bunch of new Staragte Atlantis fanfic that's come out! :)

Comments

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

The arachnophobes on your flist thank you.

I used to catalog rather a lot of children's books about bugs (kids love the gross stuff). I'll never forget the book with a tiny note on the title page that said, "The picture on the cover depicts a human head louse at 10,000 times its normal size." I was obsessively scratching my head for two days afterward.

[wraithfodder.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, those microscope shots of bugs can be creepy (but cool)