We've talked a lot about squirrels on the list for medical librarians of late :)

A terrifying and hilarious map of squirrel attacks on the U.S. power grid

The phenomenon of squirrel attacks is a great illustration of how our perception of risk tends to be skewed away from mundane frequent things toward big, scary improbable things. Plenty of ink gets spilled on the alleged vulnerability of our power grid to cyber attacks. But as none other then the Brookings Institution has noted, "squirrels have taken down the power grid more times than the zero times that hackers have." You could say the same about Hannah Montana balloons, for that matter.

Thank you, Brian L. Baker for sharing this. :)