Air travel, with more than 700 fatalities a year. But more than 700 people die in auto accidents every five hours.

Every adult can tell you the story of the Titanic. But many educated adults have never heard of the 1987 sinking of the ferry MV Dona Paz, which killed almost three times as many people, a quarter of them children.

If hundreds of thousands of people die from heart disease every year, the risk might actually seem diminished, because you become desensitized to its regularity. But if one person dies from Ebola, it is front-page news, only because it's rare.

Common mosquitoes kill 70,000 times as many people every year across the globe as terrifying sharks.

Freshwater snails kill 1,000 times as many people as wolves:

In short , certain things we're most scared of aren't that big a deal, while things we're oblivious to can be major risks, like people would rather do something very risky but common (eat a poor diet) than something trivially dangerous but less common (flying).

Generally speaking, we'd live smarter, healthier, more peaceful lives if we made judgments and decisions based not on how we feel in the moment, but on long-term trends and probabilities

That's interesting and factual. Makes one think.

Common mosquitoes kill 70,000 times as many people every year across the globe as terrifying sharks

is that why our world population is growing like mosquitoes and not sharks

yes its horrifying to think that us humans are so vulnerable to everything out there... accidents ,attacks,illnesses,whatever the atrocity, it can happen to anyone,anywhere,anytime and at any age.
we are all like buds on a plant,when the north wind blows ,who will blow away first,no one knows

i dont like thinking about things like these makes me more depressed,all i can say is just try to live your life as best and as healthily as you can with whatever means you have......

too many desires that cannot be fulfilled can make you depressed too and i heard depression can be a killer as well,leads to high blood pressure and strokes

Well, you have to consider the impact of individual incidents too.

Will I survive an airplane accident vs will I survive a car accident?

Will I survive a heart disease vs will I survive an Ebola infection?

Will I survive an encounter with mosquitoes vs will I survive an encounter with a shark?

The rarer events might be much less common, but the losses (or potential losses) are often significantly greater, which I think is a contributing factor to people's greater fear of them.