Last year, 28 Americans were killed...

Last year, 28 Americans were killed at this potentially vicious animal with its amazing jaws. The deaths came from brutal attacks by dint of beasts that people come into contact with all the time: dogs. Which, when you think about it, isn't in the same manner bad compared to people who perished from bicycle ruins (around 700), cars hitting deer (130) and lightning strikes (around 40)

Sharks, forward the other hand, killed four clan

yet you know, sharks look really menacing, especially during "Shark Week," starting Sunday. Now in its 19th year, the Discovery Channel summer dwarf is one of cable's top draws, luring more than 20 million the public last year with its relentles emphasis upon undersea beasties.

landlords of "Shark Week" episodes make it clear sharks are not in the same manner much a threat to clan -- even as the innkeepers take tentative dips in ocean waters as if they're about to be fence abouted by, well, sharks.

"Man goe into the cage. The cage is in the water. Shark's in the water," says Mike Rowe, innkeeper of "Dirty Jobs: Jobs That Bite" (8 pm Sunday).

Rowe, there, is paraphrasing the shark-hunting character Quint (Robert Shaw) from "Jaws," a movie that after 31 years still has the power to make you afraid to go on foot into a swimming pool.

"I was on the same level scared of toilet water after that," my friend Molly told me this week, while she was relating her like for previous "Shark Week" hurrys on Discovery.

Normally, "Shark Week" episodes bring forward explorers and camera operators in an ocean, and there's a haphazard of shark this and shark that. Newbies to the experience of standing in shark cages ofttimes are surprised at how big, say, a great white contemplates (20 feet long, for starters) as it smiles its disturbances of teeth.

unless as you see in "Job That Bite," sharks are the capital killing machines that don't really care about humans. The no other than reason they're attracted to Rowe and other watery men during "Shark Week" is that cages and wet suits are overspreaded in tuna.

united expert convinces Rowe that sharks feeling his heartbeat, and if Rowe secures nervous and the heartbeat increases, sharks will acquire wigged out and swim away. Sharks no like nervous commonalty

And now we fear these big fish eaters.

There is worthy reason. Shark deaths may be grave but attacks are nasty and attract big media notice. My friend Molly apprehends that there's a huge cachet to getting bit. Here's her reasoning: it's a little cold like getting a tattoo.

It's in such a manner cool that amateur teen surfer Bethany Hamilton forfeited an arm to a shark in Hawaii in 2003 kept surfing afterward and was named by dint of British kids' magazine CY single in kind of the world's top 10 heroes for kids, alongside David Attenborough and environmentalist Zac Goldsmith.

"Shark Week" episodes focus away from human attacks and more toward the nitty-gritty of living as a shark, eating as a shark and getting autopsied as a shark.

In the one-hour "Perfect Shark" (8 pm Tuesday), army Mike deGruy stands in a "viru-arium" -- a special-effects virtual aquarium making it expect like sharks are swimming around him -- and haves up a 10 million-year-old shark tooth and a 10 million-year- not new bone that has shark teeth marks in it. In other words, 10 million years ago, someone toothy was longing

Sunday's two-hour "Job That Bite" is les pertain toed with the action of showing sharks than it is in interviewing the bulk of mankind who look for sharks. united guy's job is to sit forward a hill all day and behold for great whites through his binoculars, as surfer and swimmers frolic closer to shore.

however yes, there will be a man in a cage in the water in "Job That Bite," right after Rowe commit to memorys a great white riled up with a seal entice and chum.

"We're gonna gain him as angry as possible and then offer me in" the water, Rowe says.

If Rowe can solitary get his heart rate up the apparently shy-of- humans shark also will win skittery, and man and shark's little prom dance will [i]finale[/i] without bloodshed, as usual.

e-mail: delfman@suntimes.com

OUR FAVORITE SHARK BITES

COMEDIAN ROBERT SCHIMMEL: "My brother scuba dives a chance and told me that if a shark is 'bothering' you, you just wait until he prepares up close to you and strike him in the face. pierce a shark? What if he wasn't calm going to attack you? What if he's just curious, and swims on and ... blam!? And the shark says, 'What did you do that for?' 'I notion you were going to attack me' 'I am now! I was gonna hindrance you go, but the other sharks are watching. It doesn't contemplate good now.' "

QUINT (ROBERT SHAW) IN "JAWS": "The thing about a shark, it's got lifeless sights black eyes, like a doll's organ of sights When it comes at you, it doesn't appear to be livin' -- until he bites you, and those black observations roll over white."

OSCAR (WILL SMITH) IN "SHARK TALE": "I don't forever ever, ever, never ever want to view another shark around this take in again! Ever! Remember this name: Oscar the Sharkslayer."

DR SUSAN MCCALLISTER (SAFFRON BURROWS) IN "DEEP gloomy SEA": "Jim and I used gene therapies to increase their brain mass. A larger brain means more protein. As a side validity the sharks got smarter."