Available Formats
Paperback, Export/Airside - Export/Airside/Ireland
Published: 18th April 2023
Hardback, Main
Published: 18th April 2023
Paperback, Main
Published: 2nd July 2024
We Are Electric: The New Science of Our Bodys Electrome
By (Author) Sally Adee
Canongate Books
Canongate Books
18th April 2023
2nd February 2023
Export/Airside - Export/Airside/Ireland
United Kingdom
General
Non Fiction
Electricity, electromagnetism and magnetism
History of science
Paperback
352
Width 153mm, Height 234mm, Spine 25mm
425g
You may be familiar with the idea of our body's biome - the bacterial fauna that populates our gut and can so profoundly affect our health. In We Are Electric we cross the next frontier of scientific understanding: discover your body's electrome.Every cell in our bodies - bones, skin, nerves, muscle - has a voltage, like a tiny battery. This bioelectricity is why our brains can send signals to our bodies, why we develop the way we do in the womb and how our bodies know to heal themselves from injury. When bioelectricity goes awry, illness, deformity and cancer can result. But if we can control or correct this bioelectricity, the implications for our health are remarkable: an undo switch for cancer that could flip malignant cells back into healthy ones; the ability to regenerate cells, organs, even limbs; to slow ageing and so much more.In We Are Electric, award-winning science writer Sally Adee explores the history of bioelectricity: from Galvani's epic eighteenth-century battle with the inventor of the battery, Alessandro Volta, to the medical charlatans claiming to use electricity to cure pretty much anything, to advances in the field helped along by the unusually massive axons of squid. And finally, she journeys into the future of the discipline, through today's laboratories where we are starting to see real-world medical applications being developed.The bioelectric revolution starts here.
'Sally Adee manages that most difficult feat in science writing: taking a subject you didn't know you cared about and making it genuinely fascinating and exciting. The 'ohmigod-that's-so-cool' moments come thick and fast as she brings the science up to date, investigating today's cutting edge and what the future may hold for bio-electric medicine. It's a vast and hugely exciting area of scientific research, shared with infectious enthusiasm, a real depth of knowledge and smart and funny turn of phrase. You'll never think of life in the same way again' - CAROLINE WILLIAMS, author of MOVE!: THE NEW SCIENCE OF BODY OVER MIND
'If you thought genetics was the secret of life, think again: in We Are Electric, Sally Adee vividly explores the magic of bioelectricity, and how it affects every aspect of our being. A joy to read - I loved this book' - DR JOSEPH JEBELLI, author of HOW THE MIND WORKS
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Sally Adee is an award-winning science and technology writer. She spent ten years as a technology features editor at New Scientist and IEEE Spectrum magazine. She has also written for the New York Times, BBC Future, Quartz and The Economist. She has won a US National Press Club award, a BT Information Security awards and the Guild of Health Writers Award for her inside account of Silicon Valley's young blood clinics. sally80.com | @Sally_Adee