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We Are Electric

The New Science of Our Body’s Electrome

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We Are Electric

By: Sally Adee
Narrated by: Sally Adee
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About this listen

A New Scientist Best Popular Science Book 2023

A Next Big Idea Club Must Read 2023

A Stylist Book to Bring You Wisdom in 2023

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.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2023 Sally Adee (P)2023 Canongate Books
Biological Sciences Biology Human Brain Physiology
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Critic reviews

"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 a 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)

What listeners say about We Are Electric

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Fascinating exploration of a new field, bit slow at the start

I’m so glad I read this book, I feel I know so much more than when I started.

The author has done fantastically at making the content accessible to everyone. I am familiar with general scientific terminology and felt that even someone who wasn’t would be fine (eg she explains what peer review is).

I felt the pacing was at times a bit out, with too much time given to the politics of historical scientists. During the “big reveal” in the middle of the book (ion channels, I hope that’s not a spoiler), I was frustrated because the author was holding back the explanation of what was going on in order to explain it all in detail.

This is one of those books that a lot more people should read.

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Fascinating perspective on biological systems

Well read and well constructed, hence enjoyable while very informative (for a physicist at least). Great to hear some wider complex system thinking as well as focused science.

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Best pop -science book of 2023

I loved this! An entirely new area for me and I learned so much. Beautifully written and read by the author and plenty of humour and observation. Broad and deep and clearly thorough in its research. Very accessible to a non-scientific reader like me.

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Terrible narrator and mostly history

So disappointed with this book- the author narration is so irritating !! the book is mostly history. Does not properly explain any of the concepts and lacks detail of current knowledge. Totally leaves out the most important part of the cell - the electron transport chain and seems bored by her own writing. The title is good but I wish she had tried a little harder to explain the current state of knowledge.

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