Sixty-nine and counting . . .

My reading goal for 2006 is 6 books per month, and tonight I started number 69, Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods, about his trek along the 2,100 Appalachian Trail. I have already listened to two of his tales - In A Sunburned Country, about his travels in Australia, and A Short History of Nearly Everything, that is, well, just what it says. Bryson delves into the history of the Earth, life, astronomy, biology . . . you name it.

In History, he raised a particularly interesting question. It is without question that the most deadly animal on the planet is not pit bulls, hippos, rattlesnakes or even stingrays, but mosquitos. Through the spread of malaria and other diseases, skeeters kill tens of thousands of people every year. But what blood borne disease do they not spread? AIDS. For now, at least, the AIDS virus does not survive inside the insect to be spread to the next bite victim. But imagine the devastation if the virus mutates to where it CAN survive transmission by mosquito . . .