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We Are Electric
We Are Electric: Inside the 200-Year Hunt for Our Body's Bioelectric Code, and What the Future Holds | Sally Adee
4 posts | 4 read | 1 reading | 3 to read
Science journalist Sally Adee breaks open the field of bioelectricitythe electric currents that run through our bodies and every living thingits misunderstood history, and why new discoveries will lead to new ways around antibiotic resistance, cleared arteries, and new ways to combat cancer. You may be familiar with the idea of our body's biome: the bacterial fauna that populate our gut and can so profoundly affect our health. In We Are Electric we cross into new scientific understanding: discovering your body's electrome. Every cell in our bodiesbones, skin, nerves, musclehas a voltage, like a tiny battery. It is the reason our brain can send signals to the rest of our body, how we develop in the womb, and why our body knows to heal itself 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 aging and so much more. The next scientific frontier might be decrypting the bioelectric code, much the way we did the genetic code. Yet the field is still emerging from two centuries of skepticism and entanglement with medical quackery, all stemming from an 18th-century scientific war about the nature of electricity between Luigi Galvani (father of bioelectricity, famous for shocking frogs) and Alessandro Volta (inventor of the battery). In We Are Electric, award-winning science writer Sally Adee takes readers through the thrilling history of bioelectricity and into the future: from the Victorian medical charlatans claiming to use electricity to cure everything from paralysis to diarrhea, to the advances helped along by the giant axons of squids, and finally to the brain implants and electric drugs that await usand the moral implications therein. The bioelectric revolution starts here.
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catiewithac
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Pickpick

This is an interesting look at the history and possible futures of understanding life‘s electric current. One of the biggest challenges was finding a way to measure such minuscule voltages, which involve fluctuations of Na, K, and Ca ions. The ‘electrome‘ likely directs a lot of what we don‘t understand about gene expression, symmetry, and cell differentiation. As a nurse I‘m always explaining why electrolytes are important, and this is why: ⚡️

SamAnne I just started this one. As someone one currently in remission from cancer I‘m finding the research she describes fascinating. 1y
iread2much I love the way the puzzle is laid out here, great background! Also book sounds very interesting 1y
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Pinta
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Mehso-so

From early experiments with frogs & “reanimated” corpses to contemporary cancer research, a history of scientific understanding of electrophysiology & neuroscience. Pseudoscience, tractoration, galvanism, ion channels, epigenetics, cell membranes, pacemakers, the electrome, exocortex, bioelectric healing, regenerative medicine, electroceuticals, organic electronics. P125 “Simply zapping the human rewards circuitry, it seemed, had its limits.” 2023

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Floresj
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Pickpick

This is really, really good! If you like a readable explanation of neurons, cells, scientific studies, pushing edge innovation, and potential science discoveries, this is a perfect book for you. I learned a lot and was so amazed by the science and current work on cancer, spinal cord injuries using the electrical currents from cell to cell. If you don‘t love that stuff and it‘s not really a beach read, so maybe pass…though it‘s a great book!

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SamAnne
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Interested in diving into this one after hearing an interview with the author on Fresh Air. About how the electricity of cells affects our health and mental acuity. As a person in remission from breast cancer ( but likely to return) I‘m especially interested in the research showing cancer cells have different electrical pulses than normal cells, and what research is looking like for cancer therapy. Fascinating.

Megabooks This was truly fascinating! 2y
Suet624 Wow. This sounds fascinating! 1y
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