The hilarious  New York Times  bestselling phenomenon and the perfect funny gift!  The Darwin Awards  shares the stories of those human beings who improve the gene pool by removing themselves from it in a sublimely idiotic fashion. Marvel at the thief who tries to steal live electrical wires. Gape at the lawnchair jockey who floats to a height of 16,000 feet suspended by helium balloons. And learn from the man who peers into a gasoline can using a cigarette lighter. All contend for Darwin Awards when their choices culminate in magnificent misadventures. These tales of trial and awe-inspiring error-verified by the author and endorsed by website readers-illustrate the ongoing saga of survival of the fittest in all its selective glory. The Darwin Awards vividly portrays the finest examples of evolution in action, and shows us just how uncommon common sense can be. “The Darwin Awards  is a riot to read. Deeply entertaining.”— San Francisco Weekly   "Delightfully funny,  The Darwin Awards , taken together, constitute a delicious sermon in support of common sense."— The Baltimore Sun A graduate of UC Berkeley with a degree in molecular biology,  Wendy Northcutt  began collecting the stories that make up the Darwin Awards in 1993. Her award-winning Web site www.DarwinAwards.com is one of the most popular humor pages on the Web.  The Darwin Awards have been profiled in  USA Today ,  The Wall Street Journal ,  Entertainment Weekly , and on NPR’s  All Things Considered . Wendy is the author of the international bestsellers  The Darwin Awards: Evolution in Action ,  The Darwin Awards 2: Unnatural Selection ,  The Darwin Awards 3: Survival of the Fittest,   The Darwin Awards 4: Intelligent Design, The Darwin Awards: Next Evolution , and  The Darwin Awards: Countdown to Extinction. The Darwin Awards: What are they? Darwin Awards illustrate Mark Twain's observation, "Man is the only animal that blushes-or has reason to." Survival of the Fittest Most of us know instinctively that the phrase "trust me, light this fuse" is a recipe for disaster. Darwin Award winners do not. Most of us have a basic common sense that eliminates the need for public service announcements such as, WARNING: COFFEE IS HOT! Darwin Award winners do not. The stories assembled in this book show that common sense is really not so common. There are people who think it's practical to peer into a gasoline can using a cigarette lighter. There are people who throw beach parties to celebrate an approaching hurricane. We applaud the predictable demise of such daredevils with Darwin Awards, named after Charles Darwin, the father of evolution. No warning label could have prevented evolution from creeping up on the man who electrocuted fish with household current, then waded in to collect his catch without removing the wire. Darwin Awards show what happens to people who are bewilderingly unable to cope with obvious dangers in the modern world. The terrorist who mails a letter bomb with insufficient postage wins a Darwin Award when he opens the returned package. As does the fisherman who throws a lit stick of dynamite onto the ice, only to see his faithful golden retriever fetch the stick. As does the man caught stealing from a church. Darwin Award winners plan and carry out disastrous schemes that an average child can tell are a really bad idea. They contrive to eliminate themselves from the gene pool in such an extraordinarily idiotic manner, that their action ensures the long-term survival of our species, which now contains one less idiot. The single-minded purpose and self-sacrifice of the winners, and the spectacular means by which they snuff themselves, qualifies them for the honor of winning a Darwin Award. Rules and Eligibility To win, nominees must significantly improve the gene pool by eliminating themselves from the human race in an astonishingly stupid way. All races, cultures, and socioeconomic groups are eligible to compete. Contenders are evaluated using the following five criteria: The candidate must remove himself from the gene pool. The prime tenet of the Darwin Awards is that we are celebrating the self-removal of incompetent genetic material from the human race. The potential winner must therefore render himself deceased, or at least incapable of reproducing. If someone does manage to survive an incredibly stupid feat, then his genes de facto must have something to offer in the way of luck, agility, or stamina. He is therefore not eligible for a Darwin Award, though sometimes the story is too entertaining to pass up and he earns an Honorable Mention. Heated philosophical discussions have sprung up around the reproduction rule. If a person or group gives up sex, are they eligible for a nomination since they are no longer willing to breed? Must the candidate be utterly incapable of reproduction? Can the elderly be ruled out because they are too old to have an impact on the gene pool? Should those who already hav