Dimensions
162 x 240 x 32mm
We are all familiar with the idea that machines are powered by electricity, but perhaps not so aware that this is also true for humans. The Spark of Life is a spectacular account of the body electric, showing how electricity is essential to everything we think and do, from consciousness to fighting infection, from sexual attraction to the beating of our hearts.
Physiologist Frances Ashcroft weaves real-life stories with the latest scientific findings - drawing on research that she has been at the forefront of - to explain the fundamental role of electricity in animating human existence. Why happens when you have a heart attack? Why does an electric eel not shock itself? Can someone really die of fright? Why does Viagra turn the world blue? How do cocaine, LSD and morphine work? How can ion channels - the amazing proteins that send electric signals to our nerves, muscles and brain cells - help treat diabetes and other illnesses? Was Mary Shelley right when, in Frankenstein, she inferred that electricity is the 'Spark of Life'?
Frances Ashcroft explains all this and more with wit and clarity. She introduces a cast of extraordinary personalities whose work has charted the links between molecule and mind over the centuries. She recounts the scientific detective stories involved in the development of our ideas about animal electricity, and shows how these are intimately entwined with our understanding of electricity itself. And she describes how the latest advances have led to the identification, and in some cases the cure, of a new class of disease. Anyone who has ever wondered about what makes us human will find this book a revelation.
