What I Learned Today posted about the increase of shark attacks along the Pacific coast this year. The post linked to an article in this month’s Smithsonian magazine about the intelligence of sharks.

It’s a fascinating article that focuses on the mysterious nature and social sophistication of Great Whites. The magazine posted a video related to the article.

But what amazed me most about the article is how incredible the life of Australian author Paul Raffaele comes across. His Australian publisher Pan Macmillian conducted an interview with him in 2003 to promote his book, The Last Tribes on Earth. Bear in mind that since the interview was released, Raffaele has slept amongst a cannibal tribe and, for the above Smithsonian article, swum with sharks. In April, he was injured when he was about 5 meters away from a 12-year old Afghan suicide bomber at the time of the blast.

Adventure and taking risks in their many forms have appealed to me ever since I was young when I would metamorphose from a shy chubby schoolboy into a demon on wheels whenever I got into a dodgem car. For instance, I loved speed so much, and the exhilaration of a car going very fast, that I made a conscious decision at the age of sixteen never to learn to drive a car. I knew that if I did learn, and I got a car, I would not last long in this world. The best I could expect would be to endure living with a broken body from a car crash. That’s the reason why I still can’t drive a car despite journeying around the globe more times than I can remember.