The Spark of Life: Electricity in the Human Body
A lively exploration of the surprising role that electricity plays in our bodies.What happens during a heart attack? Can someone really die of fright? What is death, anyway? How does electroshock treatment affect the brain? What is consciousness? The answers to these questions lie in the...
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A lively exploration of the surprising role that electricity plays in our bodies.What happens during a heart attack? Can someone really die of fright? What is death, anyway? How does electroshock treatment affect the brain? What is consciousness? The answers to these questions lie in the electrical signals constantly traveling through our bodies, driving our thoughts, our movements, and even the beating of our hearts. The history of how scientists discovered the role of electricity in the human body is a colorful one, filled with extraordinary personalities, fierce debates, and brilliant experiments. Moreover, present-day research on electricity and ion channels has created one of the most exciting fields in science, shedding light on conditions ranging from diabetes and allergies to cystic fibrosis, migraines, and male infertility. With inimitable wit and a clear, fresh voice, award-winning researcher Frances Ashcroft weaves together compelling real-life stories with the latest scientific findings, giving us a spectacular account of the body electric. 50 illustrations
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Format: hardcover
ISBN:
9780393078039 (0393078035)
Publish date: September 24th 2012
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Pages no: 340
Edition language: English
Extremely interesting book about how electricity helps the human body (as well as animals and plants) function correctly and what happens when a spanner gets thrown in the works. The book is not overly technical and has a few illustrations that help with explanations.
Rating: 4 of 5 Okay, so I think I'll have to read The Spark of Life at least three or four more times to fully understand everything Ashcroft covered. It was fascinating to learn the history of electricity and I couldn't get enough of Chapter 9, "The Doors of Perception." Even for non-scientists...
It was an interesting book about how the body uses electricity in all sorts of different ways, the most obvious being the control of the motor functions. Some of the biology was way over my head, but the other parts were quite straightforward to understand. There were a couple of glaring errors, but...
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