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We Are Electric: Inside the 200-Year Hunt for Our Body's Bioelectric Code, and What the Future Holds
Science journalist Sally Adee breaks open the field of bioelectricity—the electric currents that run through our bodies and every living thing—its 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 the bacterial fauna that populate our gut and can so profoundly affect our health. In We Are Electric we cross into new scientific discovering your body's electrome.
Every cell in our bodies—bones, skin, nerves, muscle—has 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 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 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 us—and the moral implications therein.
The bioelectric revolution starts here.
You may be familiar with the idea of our body's the bacterial fauna that populate our gut and can so profoundly affect our health. In We Are Electric we cross into new scientific discovering your body's electrome.
Every cell in our bodies—bones, skin, nerves, muscle—has 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 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 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 us—and the moral implications therein.
The bioelectric revolution starts here.
352 pages, Hardcover
Published February 28, 2023
282 people are currently reading
2616 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 144 reviews
April 11, 2023
This book provides a history leading to a description of the latest developments in the field of electrophysiology. The author is suggesting that this field of study will be the next area of significant new advances in science.
This book promotes the use of the new term “electrome” by referencing the recent popularities of the terms “genome” and “microbiome.”
It’s easy to be overly excited about prospects such as these, and indeed the field in the past has been filled will quacks and con artists touting unrealistic claims. This history is covered in this book and serves as a cautionary reminder not to be carried away with what can be done using human electricity.
The author has perhaps flirted a bit with overhyping the subject by beginning and ending this book by telling of her own experience with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) at a Defense Department research facility. Her performance at zapping virtual enemies was greatly enhanced by use of tDCS.
This book promotes the use of the new term “electrome” by referencing the recent popularities of the terms “genome” and “microbiome.”
The identification of the genome and microbiome proved crucial steps to understanding the full complexity of biology, but some scientists think it’s now time to plot the outlines of the "electrome": the electrical dimensions and properties of cells, the tissues they collaborate to form, and the electrical forces that are turning out to be involved in every aspect of life. Just as decoding the genome led us to the rules by which information like eye color is encoded in our DNA, bioelectricity researchers predict that decoding the electrome will help us to decipher our body’s multilayered communications systems and give us a way to decode them. (emphasis is mine)The book makes clear that bioelectricity is not confined to our brains and nervous system. Over the past couple decades it has become clear that these electric signals are pressed into service by every cell in our bodies. Animal studies in this field have suggested potential future abilities to heal severed nerve endings, grow new limbs, reverse cancers, speed wound healing, boost intelligence, speed reaction time, and enhance mental health by decoding and manipulation of the human electrome.
It’s easy to be overly excited about prospects such as these, and indeed the field in the past has been filled will quacks and con artists touting unrealistic claims. This history is covered in this book and serves as a cautionary reminder not to be carried away with what can be done using human electricity.
The author has perhaps flirted a bit with overhyping the subject by beginning and ending this book by telling of her own experience with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) at a Defense Department research facility. Her performance at zapping virtual enemies was greatly enhanced by use of tDCS.
April 1, 2023
Fantastic
Sally Adee writes in that sweet spot of science non-fiction - great stories plus clear scientific explanation. No biology degree required but plenty here for even the biologists, physicists, physicians and more. So much to learn about our body and its electrical processes, and about the people and experiments that got us here. The book you never thought you would want to read and then find you love! Highly recommend
Sally Adee writes in that sweet spot of science non-fiction - great stories plus clear scientific explanation. No biology degree required but plenty here for even the biologists, physicists, physicians and more. So much to learn about our body and its electrical processes, and about the people and experiments that got us here. The book you never thought you would want to read and then find you love! Highly recommend
Want to read
November 15, 2023Simon Winchester at the NY Times liked it a lot: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/28/bo...
Sample:
"In the spring of 1969, I was committed to a British hospital — “asylum” was the word chiseled on its Victorian archway — where during my weeks of enforced residence I was given six memorably disagreeable jolts of electricity through my brain. It was the same treatment — electro-convulsive therapy, ECT — as was infamously administered to R.P. McMurphy in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” Though things didn’t turn out too well for the character, in my case it worked, impeccably. Whatever had ailed me promptly went away and has never once recurred. And so I am a fan, a committed believer in the use of the medically prescribed marriage of high voltage and brain matter in helping to improve the occasional disarrangements of the human condition.
More than half a century later, the engaging science writer Sally Adee volunteered to endure much the same assault — though at a gentler voltage — on her own gray matter. But for very different and very much more interesting (and maybe disturbing) reasons, as she relates in her excellent first book, “We Are Electric,” about the newly discovered world of the body’s so-called electrome."
Nice review, but "Science Journalist!" is a warning flag for me. Maybe?
Sample:
"In the spring of 1969, I was committed to a British hospital — “asylum” was the word chiseled on its Victorian archway — where during my weeks of enforced residence I was given six memorably disagreeable jolts of electricity through my brain. It was the same treatment — electro-convulsive therapy, ECT — as was infamously administered to R.P. McMurphy in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” Though things didn’t turn out too well for the character, in my case it worked, impeccably. Whatever had ailed me promptly went away and has never once recurred. And so I am a fan, a committed believer in the use of the medically prescribed marriage of high voltage and brain matter in helping to improve the occasional disarrangements of the human condition.
More than half a century later, the engaging science writer Sally Adee volunteered to endure much the same assault — though at a gentler voltage — on her own gray matter. But for very different and very much more interesting (and maybe disturbing) reasons, as she relates in her excellent first book, “We Are Electric,” about the newly discovered world of the body’s so-called electrome."
Nice review, but "Science Journalist!" is a warning flag for me. Maybe?
June 16, 2023
What a fascinating book! I haven’t learned so much from a book in a long time… and it was so well paced where I wanted to keep listening and learning. Highly recommended!
March 23, 2023
I picked up this book because though I'm a scientist, I know very little about bioelectricity, and I thought it would be neat to learn. And it was! The author did a great job of explaining, and it was interesting to read the mash of history and science that filled this book. It's an odd story (at least from a more traditional biosciences perspective), in that it has evoked so much pseudoscience and still suffers from it, which has made the field less studied than it probably should be. Still, it's wildly fascinating and lots of food for thought. The body is amazing in how much we don't know about it, and bioelectricity isn't any different.
May 6, 2023
Really fascinating look into the electricity that powers our bodies-not just the nervous system and brain, but ion and channels that power each and every cell in our body. Moreover, "We Are Electric" explains how electricity doesn't merely power our cells to move, but it also involves a "bioelectric code" that determines how they propagate and mature from a universal stem cell to something that goes to our eyes, internal organs, or elsewhere. So cool to think that the bioelectric code could hold the key for pain relief, regenerative medicine, and perhaps a cure for cancer.
July 17, 2024
There is a lovely book buried somewhere within the tortured frame of this exercise in editorial malfeasance. Portions of the book demonstrate that Adee can be an effective science communicator; of particular note are her descriptions of gastroparesis/the gut's "second brain," and the electrical properties of wounds. However, those positives are lost in the editorial dysrhythmia that left this a jarring, shambling mess. The problems begin almost immediately: rather than establish her bona fides, the book opens with a breathless account of Adee's trial of a DARPA-funded transcranial direct-current stimulation headset to make her a better sharpshooter. The sense that she is a bit susceptible to hype is then put on pause as we suddenly leap back in time for an extended discursus on the rivalry between Galvani and Volta.
While Adee's historical telling is intermittently lively, it goes on at grueling length when one is hoping to hear about the current state of science (and receive a little reassurance that one's guide isn't a woo-woo rube). It was a problem easily solved by moving some of the basic scientific place-setting on bioelectricity up to the front of the book; instead, this doesn't appear until over halfway through the book, and then sandwiched into a chapter that jumps around like an ADHD kid on a sugar bender. That strong section on gastroparesis I mentioned doesn't even show up until an afterword! Similarly, the book eventually circles back to the opening chapter only to tell us that the promising results Adee championed have failed to replicate. It seems to be the case with many of the studies she cites, but it's rarely clearly stated up front (leading to further authorial suspicion).
The end result is that I never trusted Adee as a guide, and found myself increasingly frustrated as she danced around all the questions I wanted answered. It's a shame because this topic is fascinating and Adee seems like an enthusiastic reporter, even if she seems more comfortable with hyperbolic press than actual science. I winced when she declared proton gradients "boring"(!!!) in declining to describe their key function in biological systems. She throws off some really interesting asides (e.g., why metal and plastic neural implants are almost doomed to fail by Young's modulus - mismatched mechanical properties of jellylike brain and stiff metal means the future may lie in biomimics), and it seems like she did a lot of legwork to visit labs where cutting-edge stuff is happening.
I really blame her editor; someone could have reshuffled (and chopped) some sections to turn this into a banger. As it stands, the fitful and unproductive rhythm of ICCs under gastroparesis is a fitting metaphor on which to end a book doomed by haphazard organization and deadening sections of gullible hype-swallowing. You'll have to look elsewhere for a trustworthy account of this burgeoning scientific field; I know I will.
While Adee's historical telling is intermittently lively, it goes on at grueling length when one is hoping to hear about the current state of science (and receive a little reassurance that one's guide isn't a woo-woo rube). It was a problem easily solved by moving some of the basic scientific place-setting on bioelectricity up to the front of the book; instead, this doesn't appear until over halfway through the book, and then sandwiched into a chapter that jumps around like an ADHD kid on a sugar bender. That strong section on gastroparesis I mentioned doesn't even show up until an afterword! Similarly, the book eventually circles back to the opening chapter only to tell us that the promising results Adee championed have failed to replicate. It seems to be the case with many of the studies she cites, but it's rarely clearly stated up front (leading to further authorial suspicion).
The end result is that I never trusted Adee as a guide, and found myself increasingly frustrated as she danced around all the questions I wanted answered. It's a shame because this topic is fascinating and Adee seems like an enthusiastic reporter, even if she seems more comfortable with hyperbolic press than actual science. I winced when she declared proton gradients "boring"(!!!) in declining to describe their key function in biological systems. She throws off some really interesting asides (e.g., why metal and plastic neural implants are almost doomed to fail by Young's modulus - mismatched mechanical properties of jellylike brain and stiff metal means the future may lie in biomimics), and it seems like she did a lot of legwork to visit labs where cutting-edge stuff is happening.
I really blame her editor; someone could have reshuffled (and chopped) some sections to turn this into a banger. As it stands, the fitful and unproductive rhythm of ICCs under gastroparesis is a fitting metaphor on which to end a book doomed by haphazard organization and deadening sections of gullible hype-swallowing. You'll have to look elsewhere for a trustworthy account of this burgeoning scientific field; I know I will.
May 31, 2023
Interesting stuff. But there is so much pseudoscience and hokum surrounding the subject that idk how she was able to parse through it. It’ll be interesting to see what happens in 20+ years.
June 6, 2023
We Are Electric, Inside The 200-year Hunt For Our Bodies Bioelectric Code
Sally Adee, 2023
The twentieth century could be said to be the genetics era where, starting in the 1950’s, with the deciphering of the genetic code, discoveries, advancements in decoding the genome have escalated at an exponential rate. It now appears the twenty first century may be the era of bioelectric code. It has been known since the 18th century with the discoveries of Italian scientists Galvani and Volta that muscle action was controlled by electric signals through the nervous system. How that system worked had been somewhat of a mystery until relatively recently. As scientists have probed biological multicellular systems, it has become apparent that aside from the nervous system, there is a cellular and intercellular bioelectric coding system which controls development and sustaining actions fundamental to all life forms. This is the subject of Sally Adee’s book which explores cutting edge discoveries and delves into the questions of how these discoveries will impact medicine and society going forward. When an embryo develops into a recognizable organism, how do cells know what organ to form and what position it will occupy and when to stop growing? When there is an injury to a particular organ, how does the immune system know where to respond and when to stop responding? Why do cancer cells flaunt the boundaries of cellular growth and expand out of control? We now have answers to these questions, and they come from the field of bioelectricity.
Until the early twentieth century it was assumed that signals along the nervous system were controlled by the flow of electrons like electricity in a wire. That assumption was shattered in the 1920’s at Cambridge University when it was discovered that the signals were caused by the transfer and exchange of differently charged potassium and sodium ions across the synapse of the nerve. Until the 1980’s it was assumed that the role of charged ion signaling was confined to the nerve cells. Not anymore. Skin is made up of three layers of tissue with the outside called the epidermis. At Aberdeen University it was discovered that there is an electrical differential between the inner and outer layers of skin with the outer surface electrically negative with respect to the inner layers and forms a sort of battery. When you cut or wound the skin you create something akin to a short circuit with a leaking current. “All that leaking current creates a field whose influence can be felt across some distance within the body. This acts like a combination burglar alarm, compass and bat signal for surrounding cells…..the naturally occurring field created by the wound current convinces a whole crew of them to migrate to the wound. It guides in and directs the body’s emergency workers: the keratinocytes and fibroblasts that rebuild the structure, and clean-up crew (the macrophages). They all work together to reseal the epidermis. What’s even cooler? The electric field directs the cells to the center of the wound. That’s your natural cathode – the big red bulls-eye toward which all the migrating cells in the body are marshalled.”
It turns out that this property is not unique to your skin cells. As the skin ‘s membrane encloses the entire body, an organ’s membrane encloses, acts as a protective boundary, and turns out to have the same electrical battery properies as the skin. “Every organ in your body has a voltage, and it uses that voltage. The reason for the heart battery is easy to conceptualize – the heart literally uses the voltage to control its beat. It’s an electrical contraction, but you also have a kidney battery, a prostate battery. Everywhere current crosses epithelium, membrane, you get a battery. The eye battery is probably harder to conceive of, but it’s the coolest one. The eye has an extra strong wound current that helps speed up the healing process in the cornea and lens when they are injured. That’s because the retinal epithelium is one of the most electrically active tissues in your body: the reason any of us can see anything at all is because of the electrical currents and fields that eddy about its many layers….. bone is electric too. Bone is a piezoelectrical material, which means it’s a tissue that can take one form of energy and convert it to another. For example, the stress of your footfalls on your bones makes them grow stronger because the charges bone cells generate in response to this mechanical activity gets translated into electric signals that enhance bone growth. Bone also emits strong wound currents when it breaks: voltages appear at fracture sites and help the bone heal its wound. In short, you can’t talk about a living system without recognizing its electrical component.”
How do these new findings of the bioelectric code change our perceptions of embryonic development? In the age of genetics, we have all embraced the idea that the blueprint to build a human being or any animal was encoded in its genome. Actually, the genome encodes the proteins to build the organs of a human or animal but it doesn’t specify how to organize these organs into us, how many eyes, how many arms and legs, how big, in the right place and right order. If DNA does not do this, then what does? Michael Levin at Harvard discovered in 2011 that each cell type in the body has a characteristic unique electrical charge. Using electrosensitive dyes to identify voltage differences, he was able to discern where anatomical features would develop before they were manifest. Electrical signals encoded the locations of anatomical features. By inserting errant voltages into frog embryos, he was able to completely scramble the coding system resulting in disfunctions such as eyes appearing on legs. “Levin started to think of the information taking the form of a code…. A cellular intranet quite unrelated to the nervous system, connecting cell to cell. Each new cell that cleaves off is already connected to the cells around it. Long before nerve cells develop synapses, our non-excitable embryonic cells have another much faster, more electrical way of connecting…. The bioelectric code is the reason you retain that same shape throughout your entire life; it prunes your dividing cells so you keep being recognizably you.”
How does the bioelectric code impact our understanding of Cancer? Stem cells before they become differentiated into distinct types of organ cells have a unique electrical signature. They have zero electrical differential charge. So do cancer cells. In other words, they leave behind their prior identities as skin or bone cells or liver cells and revert to a cell with a special type of ion channel found in the cells supercharged multiplication phase in fetuses. Is this fundamental feature of Cancer leading to some promising insights? In 1999, Anna Soto and Carlos Sonnenschein of Tufts University suggested: “If bioelectric signaling was an important part of how cells communicate to work on pattern and coherence, they reasoned, and cancer represented a break in this multicellular contract, then interfering with cell’s ability to send bioelectric signals should lead to cancer… it was evidence that bioelectricity is the informational glue that holds big multicellular cellular structures together.” Cancer seems to be in essence a malfunction of the bioelectric coding and signaling system and there lie some potential avenues for promising therapies that are now being explored.
In my lifetime our understanding of biology, physics, astronomy, to name a few, has been exponential and unparalleled in human history. Maybe history looking back at the past century will focus on this renaissance in human understanding as comparable to that of the artistic and humanistic renaissance of the 15th and 16th centuries. This knowledge that now comes forward changes our very perceptions of who we are as biological creatures intimately connected to all life on our planet. This is a very exciting time to be alive and “We Are Electric” emphasizes how miraculous our existence and all life is on this our small rocky outpost in the universe. I confess to being a nonapologetic science nerd and maybe to get through the book’s 300 pages to the end you may have to be a tinge nerdish. JACK
Sally Adee, 2023
The twentieth century could be said to be the genetics era where, starting in the 1950’s, with the deciphering of the genetic code, discoveries, advancements in decoding the genome have escalated at an exponential rate. It now appears the twenty first century may be the era of bioelectric code. It has been known since the 18th century with the discoveries of Italian scientists Galvani and Volta that muscle action was controlled by electric signals through the nervous system. How that system worked had been somewhat of a mystery until relatively recently. As scientists have probed biological multicellular systems, it has become apparent that aside from the nervous system, there is a cellular and intercellular bioelectric coding system which controls development and sustaining actions fundamental to all life forms. This is the subject of Sally Adee’s book which explores cutting edge discoveries and delves into the questions of how these discoveries will impact medicine and society going forward. When an embryo develops into a recognizable organism, how do cells know what organ to form and what position it will occupy and when to stop growing? When there is an injury to a particular organ, how does the immune system know where to respond and when to stop responding? Why do cancer cells flaunt the boundaries of cellular growth and expand out of control? We now have answers to these questions, and they come from the field of bioelectricity.
Until the early twentieth century it was assumed that signals along the nervous system were controlled by the flow of electrons like electricity in a wire. That assumption was shattered in the 1920’s at Cambridge University when it was discovered that the signals were caused by the transfer and exchange of differently charged potassium and sodium ions across the synapse of the nerve. Until the 1980’s it was assumed that the role of charged ion signaling was confined to the nerve cells. Not anymore. Skin is made up of three layers of tissue with the outside called the epidermis. At Aberdeen University it was discovered that there is an electrical differential between the inner and outer layers of skin with the outer surface electrically negative with respect to the inner layers and forms a sort of battery. When you cut or wound the skin you create something akin to a short circuit with a leaking current. “All that leaking current creates a field whose influence can be felt across some distance within the body. This acts like a combination burglar alarm, compass and bat signal for surrounding cells…..the naturally occurring field created by the wound current convinces a whole crew of them to migrate to the wound. It guides in and directs the body’s emergency workers: the keratinocytes and fibroblasts that rebuild the structure, and clean-up crew (the macrophages). They all work together to reseal the epidermis. What’s even cooler? The electric field directs the cells to the center of the wound. That’s your natural cathode – the big red bulls-eye toward which all the migrating cells in the body are marshalled.”
It turns out that this property is not unique to your skin cells. As the skin ‘s membrane encloses the entire body, an organ’s membrane encloses, acts as a protective boundary, and turns out to have the same electrical battery properies as the skin. “Every organ in your body has a voltage, and it uses that voltage. The reason for the heart battery is easy to conceptualize – the heart literally uses the voltage to control its beat. It’s an electrical contraction, but you also have a kidney battery, a prostate battery. Everywhere current crosses epithelium, membrane, you get a battery. The eye battery is probably harder to conceive of, but it’s the coolest one. The eye has an extra strong wound current that helps speed up the healing process in the cornea and lens when they are injured. That’s because the retinal epithelium is one of the most electrically active tissues in your body: the reason any of us can see anything at all is because of the electrical currents and fields that eddy about its many layers….. bone is electric too. Bone is a piezoelectrical material, which means it’s a tissue that can take one form of energy and convert it to another. For example, the stress of your footfalls on your bones makes them grow stronger because the charges bone cells generate in response to this mechanical activity gets translated into electric signals that enhance bone growth. Bone also emits strong wound currents when it breaks: voltages appear at fracture sites and help the bone heal its wound. In short, you can’t talk about a living system without recognizing its electrical component.”
How do these new findings of the bioelectric code change our perceptions of embryonic development? In the age of genetics, we have all embraced the idea that the blueprint to build a human being or any animal was encoded in its genome. Actually, the genome encodes the proteins to build the organs of a human or animal but it doesn’t specify how to organize these organs into us, how many eyes, how many arms and legs, how big, in the right place and right order. If DNA does not do this, then what does? Michael Levin at Harvard discovered in 2011 that each cell type in the body has a characteristic unique electrical charge. Using electrosensitive dyes to identify voltage differences, he was able to discern where anatomical features would develop before they were manifest. Electrical signals encoded the locations of anatomical features. By inserting errant voltages into frog embryos, he was able to completely scramble the coding system resulting in disfunctions such as eyes appearing on legs. “Levin started to think of the information taking the form of a code…. A cellular intranet quite unrelated to the nervous system, connecting cell to cell. Each new cell that cleaves off is already connected to the cells around it. Long before nerve cells develop synapses, our non-excitable embryonic cells have another much faster, more electrical way of connecting…. The bioelectric code is the reason you retain that same shape throughout your entire life; it prunes your dividing cells so you keep being recognizably you.”
How does the bioelectric code impact our understanding of Cancer? Stem cells before they become differentiated into distinct types of organ cells have a unique electrical signature. They have zero electrical differential charge. So do cancer cells. In other words, they leave behind their prior identities as skin or bone cells or liver cells and revert to a cell with a special type of ion channel found in the cells supercharged multiplication phase in fetuses. Is this fundamental feature of Cancer leading to some promising insights? In 1999, Anna Soto and Carlos Sonnenschein of Tufts University suggested: “If bioelectric signaling was an important part of how cells communicate to work on pattern and coherence, they reasoned, and cancer represented a break in this multicellular contract, then interfering with cell’s ability to send bioelectric signals should lead to cancer… it was evidence that bioelectricity is the informational glue that holds big multicellular cellular structures together.” Cancer seems to be in essence a malfunction of the bioelectric coding and signaling system and there lie some potential avenues for promising therapies that are now being explored.
In my lifetime our understanding of biology, physics, astronomy, to name a few, has been exponential and unparalleled in human history. Maybe history looking back at the past century will focus on this renaissance in human understanding as comparable to that of the artistic and humanistic renaissance of the 15th and 16th centuries. This knowledge that now comes forward changes our very perceptions of who we are as biological creatures intimately connected to all life on our planet. This is a very exciting time to be alive and “We Are Electric” emphasizes how miraculous our existence and all life is on this our small rocky outpost in the universe. I confess to being a nonapologetic science nerd and maybe to get through the book’s 300 pages to the end you may have to be a tinge nerdish. JACK
July 23, 2023
In her captivating new book "We Are Electric," science journalist Sally Adee takes listeners on a fascinating journey to uncover the bioelectric code that powers our bodies and minds. She argues that electricity is not just something that powers our devices, but is integral to our very existence as biological beings.
Adee begins by detailing the long and winding history of discoveries related to bioelectricity, starting with 18th century experiments on electric eels and progressing to modern advances in neuroscience and bioengineering. While these pioneers, including famous names like Volta and Galvani, uncovered the role of electricity in muscles and nerves, it has only been in recent decades that we've begun to truly unlock the mysteries of our bioelectric selves.
The most compelling parts of the book center around Adee's own experiences volunteering as a human test subject in cutting-edge brain stimulation experiments. During these trials, doctors targeted parts of Adee's brain with mild electrical currents in an attempt to enhance her cognition and memory. She vividly describes the surreal yet exhilarating feeling of having her mental faculties boosted to superhuman levels by simply having certain neural circuits switched "on."
These incredible results hint at a future where we may be able to upgrade our intelligence with the flip of a switch. However, Adee tempers the excitement around such possibilities with a cautious look at the many ethical issues surrounding tinkering with the brain's circuitry. While bioelectric technologies hold great promise, she argues that we must implement appropriate safeguards as the field continues maturing.
Aside from her own adventures as a human guinea pig, Adee excels at breaking down complex scientific concepts into engaging and accessible narratives. She has a true talent for finding the perfect metaphor or real-world example to illustrate the significance of new research about everything from neural plasticity to the electrical origins of cancer. Her scenes profiling important but relatively unknown bioelectricity researchers, like the Australian neuroscientist Reggie Edgerton, bring fresh energy and personality to the audiobook.
The book's broad scope results in some sections feeling disjointed or rushed, as Adee tries to link diverse topics like frog limb regeneration, artificial sensory perception, and theories on consciousness. A more unified framing around her central theme of bioelectricity as the essence of life might have allowed for a tighter narrative. The story also leans heavily toward highlighting exciting futuristic possibilities enabled by bioelectric mastery, with less focus on current practical applications. Another disappointment was Adee’s obvious bias towards Big Pharma, as evidenced in the last 10% of the book where she indicated that Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine were not effective against COVID, which goes totally against actual evidence from reputable doctors in the field using them to treat COVID successfully (not to mention the long safety record of Ivermectin spanning decades).
However, despite these shortcomings, given the uniqueness of this book's subject matter, Adee manages to cover the topic in an engaging way and infuse the topic with humor and humanity. In a world where the digital increasingly encroaches on the biological, "We Are Electric" serves as a timely reminder that we are more than machines - we are literally crackling with the vital electricity of life.
Adee as narrator proves a great voice for guiding listeners smoothly through both the scientific details and Adee's more personal emotional journeys. Adee’s energetic yet crisp diction and pacing bring an infectious enthusiasm that pairs beautifully with Adee's own sense of wonder and curiosity. This is a story full of passion, and Adee delivers it as such.
In the end, Adee succeeds admirably in her mission to convey the revelatory power of bioelectricity research while compelling us to see ourselves in a new light. "We Are Electric" will jolt your mind with fresh insights on what it means to be human in our present moment. This shockingly good book highlights how the future prospects of our species will rely heavily on harnessing the subtle but mighty electric forces operating within us all.
Adee begins by detailing the long and winding history of discoveries related to bioelectricity, starting with 18th century experiments on electric eels and progressing to modern advances in neuroscience and bioengineering. While these pioneers, including famous names like Volta and Galvani, uncovered the role of electricity in muscles and nerves, it has only been in recent decades that we've begun to truly unlock the mysteries of our bioelectric selves.
The most compelling parts of the book center around Adee's own experiences volunteering as a human test subject in cutting-edge brain stimulation experiments. During these trials, doctors targeted parts of Adee's brain with mild electrical currents in an attempt to enhance her cognition and memory. She vividly describes the surreal yet exhilarating feeling of having her mental faculties boosted to superhuman levels by simply having certain neural circuits switched "on."
These incredible results hint at a future where we may be able to upgrade our intelligence with the flip of a switch. However, Adee tempers the excitement around such possibilities with a cautious look at the many ethical issues surrounding tinkering with the brain's circuitry. While bioelectric technologies hold great promise, she argues that we must implement appropriate safeguards as the field continues maturing.
Aside from her own adventures as a human guinea pig, Adee excels at breaking down complex scientific concepts into engaging and accessible narratives. She has a true talent for finding the perfect metaphor or real-world example to illustrate the significance of new research about everything from neural plasticity to the electrical origins of cancer. Her scenes profiling important but relatively unknown bioelectricity researchers, like the Australian neuroscientist Reggie Edgerton, bring fresh energy and personality to the audiobook.
The book's broad scope results in some sections feeling disjointed or rushed, as Adee tries to link diverse topics like frog limb regeneration, artificial sensory perception, and theories on consciousness. A more unified framing around her central theme of bioelectricity as the essence of life might have allowed for a tighter narrative. The story also leans heavily toward highlighting exciting futuristic possibilities enabled by bioelectric mastery, with less focus on current practical applications. Another disappointment was Adee’s obvious bias towards Big Pharma, as evidenced in the last 10% of the book where she indicated that Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine were not effective against COVID, which goes totally against actual evidence from reputable doctors in the field using them to treat COVID successfully (not to mention the long safety record of Ivermectin spanning decades).
However, despite these shortcomings, given the uniqueness of this book's subject matter, Adee manages to cover the topic in an engaging way and infuse the topic with humor and humanity. In a world where the digital increasingly encroaches on the biological, "We Are Electric" serves as a timely reminder that we are more than machines - we are literally crackling with the vital electricity of life.
Adee as narrator proves a great voice for guiding listeners smoothly through both the scientific details and Adee's more personal emotional journeys. Adee’s energetic yet crisp diction and pacing bring an infectious enthusiasm that pairs beautifully with Adee's own sense of wonder and curiosity. This is a story full of passion, and Adee delivers it as such.
In the end, Adee succeeds admirably in her mission to convey the revelatory power of bioelectricity research while compelling us to see ourselves in a new light. "We Are Electric" will jolt your mind with fresh insights on what it means to be human in our present moment. This shockingly good book highlights how the future prospects of our species will rely heavily on harnessing the subtle but mighty electric forces operating within us all.
February 27, 2024
Fantástico. Muito bem escrito.
Foi gratificante ler e aprender várias coisas que não conhecia nesta área.
Foi gratificante ler e aprender várias coisas que não conhecia nesta área.
October 9, 2023
From the first page which aims to draw my attention with a exciting personal anecdote of a military shooting simulation, I suspected a pseudo-medical book that would rush ahead of existing science, trying to find sizzle. On page 71, Adee aims to coopt and redefine electrome, since biome and epigenome are all the rage, and as she directly cautions we might not be convinced… yeah, i’m not.
Entire first history section was not especially compelling, though obviously well known to the author, though I guess it can be interesting to see famous scientist names dropped in the context of electricity.
The narrative description of the ion channel / proton pump that gives every animal cell energy, that was well written (p86-90). And yes, is is very cool how the potassium channel is shared by all living cells.
Second half of the book is about “cracking the human bioelectic code”, so as to improve health. Yes pacemakers work, and electricity to the scalp does various things to brains.
Yes, brain electricity can be read, and this with AI, will soon enable astonishing new digital input devices, but she leaves this promising area completely abandoned and uncovered at page 149.
We get over 30 excessive pages on why we don’t have spinal regeneration, and speculation about research into electricity accelerating wound healing. (p150-83)
It gets worse, with a full chapter on details of bioelectricity in embryos (why?) and hand waving about clinical approaches to cancer detection.
The last 2 chapters about the speculative future seem the best part, to me, in part because a lot of possibilities are covered briefly, and at a level of technical detail that was beyond my easy understanding, but seemed fully approachable with the endnotes and references. Someone deeply interested in this research would probably find various good leads here.
Overall, a science journalist trained in electrical engineering, has done a credible attempt crossing over to biology, but this is not medicine nor health.
Entire first history section was not especially compelling, though obviously well known to the author, though I guess it can be interesting to see famous scientist names dropped in the context of electricity.
The narrative description of the ion channel / proton pump that gives every animal cell energy, that was well written (p86-90). And yes, is is very cool how the potassium channel is shared by all living cells.
Second half of the book is about “cracking the human bioelectic code”, so as to improve health. Yes pacemakers work, and electricity to the scalp does various things to brains.
Yes, brain electricity can be read, and this with AI, will soon enable astonishing new digital input devices, but she leaves this promising area completely abandoned and uncovered at page 149.
We get over 30 excessive pages on why we don’t have spinal regeneration, and speculation about research into electricity accelerating wound healing. (p150-83)
It gets worse, with a full chapter on details of bioelectricity in embryos (why?) and hand waving about clinical approaches to cancer detection.
The last 2 chapters about the speculative future seem the best part, to me, in part because a lot of possibilities are covered briefly, and at a level of technical detail that was beyond my easy understanding, but seemed fully approachable with the endnotes and references. Someone deeply interested in this research would probably find various good leads here.
Overall, a science journalist trained in electrical engineering, has done a credible attempt crossing over to biology, but this is not medicine nor health.
November 11, 2023
"The study of brain stimulation is not broken—it's just really, really hard, like science in general. There's no conspiracy in science to get bad results past peer reviewers; it's just that any one single study can run into loads of problems—not enough funding for sufficient numbers of trial participants, researcher bias, non-standardized equipment, stimulation strengths—there are so many parameters, you hardly know where to start." (276)
"So my final exhortation for you, the person who has made it all the way to the end of my book, is this: when you see someone trying to sell you stuff, ask who will benefit. Why is someone trying to sell it to you? Is it really for you? Beyond the basic 'were the trials any good' skepticism, ask what will happen next. Is this something that will alleviate your suffering? Or will it just kick the can down the road because eventually your new normal will become the new substandard, making way for the next piece of enhancing kit? The answer to that question is very different if the intervention is a treatment for cancer versus a way to be a better hustle goblin at your workplace." (294)
"So my final exhortation for you, the person who has made it all the way to the end of my book, is this: when you see someone trying to sell you stuff, ask who will benefit. Why is someone trying to sell it to you? Is it really for you? Beyond the basic 'were the trials any good' skepticism, ask what will happen next. Is this something that will alleviate your suffering? Or will it just kick the can down the road because eventually your new normal will become the new substandard, making way for the next piece of enhancing kit? The answer to that question is very different if the intervention is a treatment for cancer versus a way to be a better hustle goblin at your workplace." (294)
January 25, 2024
This material was published in 2023 and the audiobook is read by the author.
The author summarizes the history of “bio-electricity” and how modern science has attempted to identify the “bio-electric code” of living organisms.
Studies into the regeneration of limbs and healing of spinal cord injuries, using “bio-electricity” and “bio-electric fields” concepts are reported along with the potential future application of “bio-robots” and non-invasive “deep brain therapy” techniques are addressed.
Definitely worth the time to read/listen.
The author summarizes the history of “bio-electricity” and how modern science has attempted to identify the “bio-electric code” of living organisms.
Studies into the regeneration of limbs and healing of spinal cord injuries, using “bio-electricity” and “bio-electric fields” concepts are reported along with the potential future application of “bio-robots” and non-invasive “deep brain therapy” techniques are addressed.
Definitely worth the time to read/listen.
November 20, 2025
I love a nonfiction that can weave past, present, and future together in such an engaging way you see the world differently, and that’s exactly what this book delivered. Adee’s drive to learn more and passion for asking questions is a consistent and powerful driver as she pursues the relationship between the electricity in our bodies and how it affects our daily lives… and how it can be manipulated.
Would highly recommend this book to any and all.
RIP to all the frogs who unwillingly sacrificed their lives in our pursuit of knowledge.
Would highly recommend this book to any and all.
RIP to all the frogs who unwillingly sacrificed their lives in our pursuit of knowledge.
December 11, 2023
3.5 stars for me. First 75% of the book was 2-3 stars. Mostly just the history of how electricity was discovered in the body. I felt like it's already common knowledge that our bodies conduct electricity, so the first part was hard to get through. The last 25% of the book was 5 stars, hands down. Fascinating, modern day applications.
May 14, 2023
The information in the book is so very interesting. I'm excited to see how all of this transforms the world of medicine.
April 23, 2024
Useful, well researched.
Slightly repetitive.
The majority of new information is presented in the first quarter or so of the book.
I was hopeful there would be more new discoveries, but the field does not appear to have progressed that far.
Slightly repetitive.
The majority of new information is presented in the first quarter or so of the book.
I was hopeful there would be more new discoveries, but the field does not appear to have progressed that far.
June 2, 2023
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!
June 16, 2025
A fun read! It was especially fascinating to have a walk-through of the rehab technology in this field, and I found myself looking forward to the next time I could pick this book back up.
July 22, 2023
We Are Electric is about the natural electricity that surges through all our bodies, and the truly head-spinning ways the world will change if we learn how to manipulate it. Over the next few hundred pages I will teach you about the substance that courses through all living things, underpinning their every move and intention. This natural electrical current predates nervous systems and even humanity itself; it was coursing through the bodies of our ancestors long before the first fishy mutants even squelched onto dry land. It is the most ancient thing about us. It is among the most ancient things about life itself.
I was drawn to this topic because I am in love with the idea of electricity as spiritual and soulful metaphor and I want to be related to bioluminescence in other creatures, and I usually appreciate the science behind metaphor. I was disappointed, but I can’t pinpoint why. I feel the author did an amazing job at bringing some of it alive, but others were flatter and duller than thought possible, or experienced in really technical geology or boring history. But worth a try if you like new pathways in science.
We are fundamentally electrical creatures, but the full extent of our electrification would shock you. It is hard to overstate how wholly and utterly your every movement, perception, and thought are controlled by electrical signals. This is not the electricity that comes from a battery or the kind that turns on the lights and powers the dishwasher. That kind of electricity is made of electrons, which are negatively charged particles flowing in a current. The human body runs on a very different version: “bioelectricity.” Instead of electrons, these currents are created by the movements of mostly positively charged ions like potassium, sodium, and calcium.
When a nerve impulse comes roaring down a nerve fiber, channels open in the neuron and millions of ions get instantly sucked through them into and out of the extracellular space, taking all their charge with them. The electrical field generated by this mass migration of charge works out to about a million volts per meter, which at that scale would feel like passing an entire bolt of lightning from one of your outstretched hands to the other. That’s what it feels like to be every neuron in your body, every moment of your life.
Bioelectricity isn’t confined to our brains. Over the past couple of decades it has become clear that these signals are pressed into service by every cell in your body, not just those that govern your perception and motion. Each of your skin cells has its own voltage, which it combines with neighboring cells to generate an electrical field. You can even measure your skin’s electricity with a voltmeter: just stretch a piece of skin and connect it to electrodes and the “skin battery” will light up a light bulb.
Similarly, the cells in your bones are electric. Your teeth are electric. Your organs are electric—and so is the coat of epithelial tissue that hugs each one. Blood cells too. Every single one is a microscopic power plant generating a tiny voltage to communicate within and among themselves. We used to think those non-nervous-system cells mainly used bioelectric signaling for trivial janitorial and maintenance tasks—for example, waste disposal and energy management. But new research is making it increasingly clear that they do far more. You and I are so much more electric than is commonly acknowledged.
During the centuries of argument over the existence and nature of the nervous impulse, skeptics had many reasons to doubt that actual electricity runs in the animal nervous system. Investigations into the intriguing powers of electric fish and eels had yielded an obvious source: a giant electrical organ specialized to store up electrical charge and then dispense it in one big paralyzing zap. No anatomist had yet succeeded at locating anything like that in a human body. And without a power source, how were we supposed to be sending electrical current down our nerves? This led to lingering suspicions that electricity was just an unsatisfying metaphor for the otherwise mysterious conduction mechanism of nervous signals.
Recent research strongly suggests our bodies are running at least two—if not more—electrical communications networks. Evidence has begun to accumulate that the bioelectricity in the nervous system—the animating force behind animal spirits—is not the only electrical communication network used by the animal body. Strange electrical features and behaviors connect all the cells in our body. Skin, bone, blood, nerve—any biological cell—put it in a petri dish and apply an electric field, and they all crawl to the same end of it. It’s as if they can sense the electric field, even though we don’t yet understand how cells could possibly sense those things. All we know is that electric fields affect the bioelectric properties of a cell—any cell, and sometimes whole organs—in a way that can be used to make it do things it normally wouldn’t.
It is for this reason that some scientists are beginning to think bioelectricity can be understood as a component of epigenetics—which describes how the environment can cause changes that alter the way your genes work without changing the actual DNA. “More and more epigenetic factors which drive the organization of biological information patterns and flows are being discovered,” writes the physicist Paul Davies.27 Bioelectricity is emerging as a major—if as yet poorly understood—epigenetic factor, he thinks, providing a powerful way for cells to manage epigenetic information. But other researchers are finding that it may be more than just another aspect of epigenetics. The word “epigenetic” means “above the genes.” And maybe electrical signaling functions as a kind of “meta-epigenetics”—one ring to bind them.
I was drawn to this topic because I am in love with the idea of electricity as spiritual and soulful metaphor and I want to be related to bioluminescence in other creatures, and I usually appreciate the science behind metaphor. I was disappointed, but I can’t pinpoint why. I feel the author did an amazing job at bringing some of it alive, but others were flatter and duller than thought possible, or experienced in really technical geology or boring history. But worth a try if you like new pathways in science.
We are fundamentally electrical creatures, but the full extent of our electrification would shock you. It is hard to overstate how wholly and utterly your every movement, perception, and thought are controlled by electrical signals. This is not the electricity that comes from a battery or the kind that turns on the lights and powers the dishwasher. That kind of electricity is made of electrons, which are negatively charged particles flowing in a current. The human body runs on a very different version: “bioelectricity.” Instead of electrons, these currents are created by the movements of mostly positively charged ions like potassium, sodium, and calcium.
When a nerve impulse comes roaring down a nerve fiber, channels open in the neuron and millions of ions get instantly sucked through them into and out of the extracellular space, taking all their charge with them. The electrical field generated by this mass migration of charge works out to about a million volts per meter, which at that scale would feel like passing an entire bolt of lightning from one of your outstretched hands to the other. That’s what it feels like to be every neuron in your body, every moment of your life.
Bioelectricity isn’t confined to our brains. Over the past couple of decades it has become clear that these signals are pressed into service by every cell in your body, not just those that govern your perception and motion. Each of your skin cells has its own voltage, which it combines with neighboring cells to generate an electrical field. You can even measure your skin’s electricity with a voltmeter: just stretch a piece of skin and connect it to electrodes and the “skin battery” will light up a light bulb.
Similarly, the cells in your bones are electric. Your teeth are electric. Your organs are electric—and so is the coat of epithelial tissue that hugs each one. Blood cells too. Every single one is a microscopic power plant generating a tiny voltage to communicate within and among themselves. We used to think those non-nervous-system cells mainly used bioelectric signaling for trivial janitorial and maintenance tasks—for example, waste disposal and energy management. But new research is making it increasingly clear that they do far more. You and I are so much more electric than is commonly acknowledged.
During the centuries of argument over the existence and nature of the nervous impulse, skeptics had many reasons to doubt that actual electricity runs in the animal nervous system. Investigations into the intriguing powers of electric fish and eels had yielded an obvious source: a giant electrical organ specialized to store up electrical charge and then dispense it in one big paralyzing zap. No anatomist had yet succeeded at locating anything like that in a human body. And without a power source, how were we supposed to be sending electrical current down our nerves? This led to lingering suspicions that electricity was just an unsatisfying metaphor for the otherwise mysterious conduction mechanism of nervous signals.
Recent research strongly suggests our bodies are running at least two—if not more—electrical communications networks. Evidence has begun to accumulate that the bioelectricity in the nervous system—the animating force behind animal spirits—is not the only electrical communication network used by the animal body. Strange electrical features and behaviors connect all the cells in our body. Skin, bone, blood, nerve—any biological cell—put it in a petri dish and apply an electric field, and they all crawl to the same end of it. It’s as if they can sense the electric field, even though we don’t yet understand how cells could possibly sense those things. All we know is that electric fields affect the bioelectric properties of a cell—any cell, and sometimes whole organs—in a way that can be used to make it do things it normally wouldn’t.
It is for this reason that some scientists are beginning to think bioelectricity can be understood as a component of epigenetics—which describes how the environment can cause changes that alter the way your genes work without changing the actual DNA. “More and more epigenetic factors which drive the organization of biological information patterns and flows are being discovered,” writes the physicist Paul Davies.27 Bioelectricity is emerging as a major—if as yet poorly understood—epigenetic factor, he thinks, providing a powerful way for cells to manage epigenetic information. But other researchers are finding that it may be more than just another aspect of epigenetics. The word “epigenetic” means “above the genes.” And maybe electrical signaling functions as a kind of “meta-epigenetics”—one ring to bind them.
May 1, 2025
This was my first real venture into the world of nonfiction, and I doubt I could have started with a better book! Adee's writing is engaging and clear, understandable even for science enthusiasts who don't actually know that much about science yet (aka me). The complex science of the book was presented alongside its historical context, which for me added a great deal of empathy, significance, and humor; I doubt I'll ever look at Alexander von Humboldt the same way again! The breadth of the book was a little overwhelming at first, but having finished it I am only excited about the wide-reaching developments in this field and anxious to learn more!
August 9, 2023
A must read for everybody that is curious about all the missing parts on the science of life... Amazing the last chapters chapters with state of the art research
May 7, 2025
THIS BOOK was amazing. I couldn't stop thinking about it while I was reading. Gave me a deep appreciation of all the buzzing energy going on in my own body and brain all the time. Highly recommend.
July 4, 2024
Summary
Sally Adee, a well-published science and technology journalist, writes her first book about a major shift she has been witnessing in biology, and it all has to do with electricity. She opens the book with a brief history of what we know about electricity and how we discovered what we do know. Spoiler alert: it includes a lot of frogs. The main thing she wanted to highlight was that during the beginning of research into electrical phenomena, the field quickly branched into two directions. One branch focused on what was called animal electricity, while the other focused more on non-animal electricity.
At this early stage of research, neither branch had reliable tools to conduct empirical science. There was a high degree of speculation in both fields, but with the breakthrough of the first battery, this quickly changed, at least for non-animal electricity. Suddenly, there was a reliable way to create, measure, and distribute this mysterious energy. When it came to animal electricity, there were no such tools to reliably create results, yet the claims held an intuitive weight and were picked up by many scientists and many more quacks. Eventually, there were so many scandals involving wild, unsubstantiated claims that the whole field of animal electricity was dismissed as pseudoscience.
Technology kept improving, and eventually, measurement tools got precise enough to handle the tiny charges created by biological organisms, vindicating much of the early animal electricity scientists. However, their theories about how electricity actually worked in the body were correct only in the broadest sense. Much of the theories had to be thrown out or reworked in the one step forward, two steps back investigation of science.
So what does this promising approach to biology offer us? Quite a bit. Scientists have utilized it for a while to stimulate hearts with pacemakers or calm down brains with epilepsy. Beyond this, being able to manipulate our electrome (as Adee calls it) holds tantalizing promises of faster wound healing, limb regeneration, reversing cancer, and slowing aging. The catch is that the system is much more complicated and interconnected than any of man-made electronics.
Adee explains that instead of simple positive-negative wires exchanging electricity in our body, we utilize charge differentials in chemicals themselves. Each cell in your body acts like a little battery with the capacity to become more negatively or positively charged than its surroundings. Each cell also has ion channels that allow specific molecules in or out, depending on the state of the overall system. The takeaway here is we have only relatively recently begun to realize the role that electrical charges play in the nervous system. Now, we are discovering that this same mechanism for communication extends through every cell in your body. At this point, we don't know enough to manipulate these distributed electrical systems precisely, but being able to do so looks like the biggest hurdle between us and a medical revolution.
Thoughts
I came across this book because I had heard it referenced during an NPR interview with the author, and one of her articles was mentioned in Harari's "Homo Deus." In the interview, Adee discussed a lab finding by some scientists that sounded truly like science fiction. They were able, with the help of specially formulated dye, to literally see the shape a developing tadpole would take. The scientists were watching some frog embryos develop and, building off previous research that indicated cells moved according to electromagnetic fields, they attempted to insert a dye activated by a certain voltage level. By doing this, they were able to see the outline and placement of the frog's eyes before the cells dutifully went to where they were supposed to go. Ultimately constructing the eye over where the voltage 'outline' had been.
The second story involved a headset that enabled her to learn how to be a sharpshooter "instantaneously." The science related to both of these stories is still very much in flux , but either way, they make for good dinner conversation. Unfortunately, these two stories are the high points in the book, so reading it felt a little less fun knowing about them beforehand and not really having anything else that equaled their 'stickiness'. Beyond that, her writing style was exactly what I would expect in a short science article, but was a bit much for a three-hundred-page book. The casual tone is highly digestible in short articles, but I typically read a book for different reasons than I would read an article, and so it didn't quite work for me.
Sally Adee, a well-published science and technology journalist, writes her first book about a major shift she has been witnessing in biology, and it all has to do with electricity. She opens the book with a brief history of what we know about electricity and how we discovered what we do know. Spoiler alert: it includes a lot of frogs. The main thing she wanted to highlight was that during the beginning of research into electrical phenomena, the field quickly branched into two directions. One branch focused on what was called animal electricity, while the other focused more on non-animal electricity.
At this early stage of research, neither branch had reliable tools to conduct empirical science. There was a high degree of speculation in both fields, but with the breakthrough of the first battery, this quickly changed, at least for non-animal electricity. Suddenly, there was a reliable way to create, measure, and distribute this mysterious energy. When it came to animal electricity, there were no such tools to reliably create results, yet the claims held an intuitive weight and were picked up by many scientists and many more quacks. Eventually, there were so many scandals involving wild, unsubstantiated claims that the whole field of animal electricity was dismissed as pseudoscience.
Technology kept improving, and eventually, measurement tools got precise enough to handle the tiny charges created by biological organisms, vindicating much of the early animal electricity scientists. However, their theories about how electricity actually worked in the body were correct only in the broadest sense. Much of the theories had to be thrown out or reworked in the one step forward, two steps back investigation of science.
So what does this promising approach to biology offer us? Quite a bit. Scientists have utilized it for a while to stimulate hearts with pacemakers or calm down brains with epilepsy. Beyond this, being able to manipulate our electrome (as Adee calls it) holds tantalizing promises of faster wound healing, limb regeneration, reversing cancer, and slowing aging. The catch is that the system is much more complicated and interconnected than any of man-made electronics.
Adee explains that instead of simple positive-negative wires exchanging electricity in our body, we utilize charge differentials in chemicals themselves. Each cell in your body acts like a little battery with the capacity to become more negatively or positively charged than its surroundings. Each cell also has ion channels that allow specific molecules in or out, depending on the state of the overall system. The takeaway here is we have only relatively recently begun to realize the role that electrical charges play in the nervous system. Now, we are discovering that this same mechanism for communication extends through every cell in your body. At this point, we don't know enough to manipulate these distributed electrical systems precisely, but being able to do so looks like the biggest hurdle between us and a medical revolution.
Thoughts
I came across this book because I had heard it referenced during an NPR interview with the author, and one of her articles was mentioned in Harari's "Homo Deus." In the interview, Adee discussed a lab finding by some scientists that sounded truly like science fiction. They were able, with the help of specially formulated dye, to literally see the shape a developing tadpole would take. The scientists were watching some frog embryos develop and, building off previous research that indicated cells moved according to electromagnetic fields, they attempted to insert a dye activated by a certain voltage level. By doing this, they were able to see the outline and placement of the frog's eyes before the cells dutifully went to where they were supposed to go. Ultimately constructing the eye over where the voltage 'outline' had been.
The second story involved a headset that enabled her to learn how to be a sharpshooter "instantaneously." The science related to both of these stories is still very much in flux , but either way, they make for good dinner conversation. Unfortunately, these two stories are the high points in the book, so reading it felt a little less fun knowing about them beforehand and not really having anything else that equaled their 'stickiness'. Beyond that, her writing style was exactly what I would expect in a short science article, but was a bit much for a three-hundred-page book. The casual tone is highly digestible in short articles, but I typically read a book for different reasons than I would read an article, and so it didn't quite work for me.
December 11, 2023
Information detailed in this 2023 book by science and technology writer, Sally Adee who is a citizen of Germany and the US but lives in London seems familiar, as if it pre-existed in my subconscious mind or perhaps at a cellular level with an ambiguous and indistinct association with my central nervous system.
Our body's bioelectric code, only now being unraveled, is destined to open the door to solving human health troubles and creating wonderment by enhancing performance that is suggestive of science fiction and magic.
Let me be clear, bioelectricity is not limited to our nerve cells and neurons. Every living cell in our muscles, blood, bones, and skin all have electrical potentials across our uncountable cell membranes.
As an example, all of us are probably familiar with the electrical character of our heart. Additionally, it's fairly widely known that small electrical currents applied to bone fractures accelerate healing and helps new blood vessels grow into wounds faster. Electrical stimulation has even been shown to be effective at aiding skin transplants.
But, are you aware of the fundamental role of bioelectricity when you were all stem cells as a three-to-five-day-old blastocyst? It's worth knowing that it's electricity that controls an egg cell membrane to allow only one sperm cell to enter. It goes without saying how essential this limiting-factor role is to healthy development.
It's bioelectricity that is responsible for the eventual change from stem cells of the blastocyst into specific organs like skin or lungs. And it's electrical field properties, like polarity, that's responsible for our body's precise internal asymmetry; the fastidious plumbing of the heart; and all of the correct left-right placement patterns of our organs (genes and DNA have zero sense of left-right orientation).
Keep in mind, the Author provides, in the back of the book, 35 pages of technical and historical references in a section titled, Notes. It's possible to live in wonderment for decades following the reading roadmap provided by Ms Adee's extensive reference list.
Read this book to have your hair blown back. Learn, for certain, that bioelectricity is not confined to your brain. Each of your living skin cells has its own voltage, which it combines with neighboring cells to generate an electric field. You can easily measure your skin's electricity with an off-the-shelf voltmeter.
You can light up a small incandescent light bulb with your breast or prostate battery. What are the health effects of being frequently exposed to the pollution of external electrical fields that are all around us inside our homes, inside our cars, inside our places of work, under overhead high-voltage power lines, and being in close proximity to computers, TVs, and smart phones? What about increased exposure to external electrical fields due to being inside electric vehicles? Is there a link between exposure to certain external electric fields and cancer, Alzheimer's disease, and other cell-level disorders? Do external electric field exposures cause depression?
This book is a learning buzz. Become aware of: a) the speeding up of learning with transcranial direct current stimulation; b) use of 9-volt battery's electrical stimulation to the front part of a person's head to improve rifle shooting accuracy; c) use of deep brain stimulation to treat severe depression, Parkinson's disease, cancer, epilepsy, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and obesity; d) electricity applications for spinal and limb regeneration; e) use of electrical fields to create artificial memories and to treat PTSD; f) using electricity for sports medicine applications; g) healing of wounds; and h) improving emotional health.
This topic is one rabbit-hole to jump into head first.
Our body's bioelectric code, only now being unraveled, is destined to open the door to solving human health troubles and creating wonderment by enhancing performance that is suggestive of science fiction and magic.
Let me be clear, bioelectricity is not limited to our nerve cells and neurons. Every living cell in our muscles, blood, bones, and skin all have electrical potentials across our uncountable cell membranes.
As an example, all of us are probably familiar with the electrical character of our heart. Additionally, it's fairly widely known that small electrical currents applied to bone fractures accelerate healing and helps new blood vessels grow into wounds faster. Electrical stimulation has even been shown to be effective at aiding skin transplants.
But, are you aware of the fundamental role of bioelectricity when you were all stem cells as a three-to-five-day-old blastocyst? It's worth knowing that it's electricity that controls an egg cell membrane to allow only one sperm cell to enter. It goes without saying how essential this limiting-factor role is to healthy development.
It's bioelectricity that is responsible for the eventual change from stem cells of the blastocyst into specific organs like skin or lungs. And it's electrical field properties, like polarity, that's responsible for our body's precise internal asymmetry; the fastidious plumbing of the heart; and all of the correct left-right placement patterns of our organs (genes and DNA have zero sense of left-right orientation).
Keep in mind, the Author provides, in the back of the book, 35 pages of technical and historical references in a section titled, Notes. It's possible to live in wonderment for decades following the reading roadmap provided by Ms Adee's extensive reference list.
Read this book to have your hair blown back. Learn, for certain, that bioelectricity is not confined to your brain. Each of your living skin cells has its own voltage, which it combines with neighboring cells to generate an electric field. You can easily measure your skin's electricity with an off-the-shelf voltmeter.
You can light up a small incandescent light bulb with your breast or prostate battery. What are the health effects of being frequently exposed to the pollution of external electrical fields that are all around us inside our homes, inside our cars, inside our places of work, under overhead high-voltage power lines, and being in close proximity to computers, TVs, and smart phones? What about increased exposure to external electrical fields due to being inside electric vehicles? Is there a link between exposure to certain external electric fields and cancer, Alzheimer's disease, and other cell-level disorders? Do external electric field exposures cause depression?
This book is a learning buzz. Become aware of: a) the speeding up of learning with transcranial direct current stimulation; b) use of 9-volt battery's electrical stimulation to the front part of a person's head to improve rifle shooting accuracy; c) use of deep brain stimulation to treat severe depression, Parkinson's disease, cancer, epilepsy, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and obesity; d) electricity applications for spinal and limb regeneration; e) use of electrical fields to create artificial memories and to treat PTSD; f) using electricity for sports medicine applications; g) healing of wounds; and h) improving emotional health.
This topic is one rabbit-hole to jump into head first.
December 26, 2025
We Are Electric by Sally Adee is a fascinating exploration of our body "electrome" - a very less understood aspect of biology. It looks at the role of electricity in shaping life itself. Adee traces the long, often contentious history of bioelectricity - from the early rivalry between Galvani and Volta to Humboldt’s overlooked contributions - showing how scientific progress was slowed for decades by disciplinary turf wars. Was electricity in living beings a matter of physics, chemistry, or biology? The book makes a compelling case that it is all three, and that our insistence on siloing knowledge has held us back.
Adee clearly explains the fundamentals: how neurons communicate through ion channels through cell membranes, how gradients of charged particles create electrical fields in the body, and how this “electrome” interacts with genetics and epigenetics. Genes may provide the instructions, but bioelectric signals help decide when, where, and how those instructions are carried out. This idea - that the body runs on a bioelectrical code that determines form (in a fetus or in regeneration of limbs), healing, and specialization is genuinely mindboggling.
The medical implications of this field are equally astonishing. Adee describes how electrical signals guide wound healing, with breaks in the skin’s natural electric field acting as distress beacons for repair. She explores how electrodes can stimulate neuron growth in spinal cord injuries, how subtle electrical changes can predict ovulation, and how early shifts in bioelectric patterns may signal the onset of cancer long before conventional symptoms appear. The sections on regeneration - particularly the ability of children to regrow fingertip tissue - hint at dormant human capacities we barely understand.
What also stands out is the book’s sober realism. For all its promise, bioelectric medicine struggles to move from lab to clinic. Startups fail, funding dries up, and promising therapies are lost to institutional inertia. Adee is particularly sharp in her critique of how rigid scientific silos and risk-averse healthcare systems stifle exploration of the electrome. She also doesn't shy away from the problem of the scams and electroquakery from the field which has impeded real progress in the field.
We Are Electric is both a history of neglected science and fascinating discoveries in the nascent field of bioelectricity.
Adee clearly explains the fundamentals: how neurons communicate through ion channels through cell membranes, how gradients of charged particles create electrical fields in the body, and how this “electrome” interacts with genetics and epigenetics. Genes may provide the instructions, but bioelectric signals help decide when, where, and how those instructions are carried out. This idea - that the body runs on a bioelectrical code that determines form (in a fetus or in regeneration of limbs), healing, and specialization is genuinely mindboggling.
The medical implications of this field are equally astonishing. Adee describes how electrical signals guide wound healing, with breaks in the skin’s natural electric field acting as distress beacons for repair. She explores how electrodes can stimulate neuron growth in spinal cord injuries, how subtle electrical changes can predict ovulation, and how early shifts in bioelectric patterns may signal the onset of cancer long before conventional symptoms appear. The sections on regeneration - particularly the ability of children to regrow fingertip tissue - hint at dormant human capacities we barely understand.
What also stands out is the book’s sober realism. For all its promise, bioelectric medicine struggles to move from lab to clinic. Startups fail, funding dries up, and promising therapies are lost to institutional inertia. Adee is particularly sharp in her critique of how rigid scientific silos and risk-averse healthcare systems stifle exploration of the electrome. She also doesn't shy away from the problem of the scams and electroquakery from the field which has impeded real progress in the field.
We Are Electric is both a history of neglected science and fascinating discoveries in the nascent field of bioelectricity.
July 10, 2023
‘We Are Electric’ by Sally Adee — the holistic inquiry into bioelectrical revolution
An acclaimed science journalist investigates biological electricity and its significance for curing diseases.
After growing an eye on a frog’s stomach [1] and regrowing a frog’s severed leg [2], Michael Levin’s Lab at Tufts University is now working on regrowing fingers in mice [3]. His lab’s breakthroughs for tissue regeneration are funded by a $16 million investment from DARPA, a US research agency [4]. Scientists like him are learning how to harness the power of natural bioelectricity using artificial stimulation to achieve remarkable results.
Sally Adee argues that the bioelectrical revolution is the future. In her book ‘We Are Electric’, she calls for an integrated understanding of bioelectricity—a specific property of cell communication, which so far has been siloed into subdisciplines. The book builds upon the late 20th-century work of Robert O. Becker’s ‘The Body Electric’ [5], providing a fresh perspective on new developments while explaining the science behind them.
For instance, our thinking processes are thanks to our brain cells communicating through electrical signals generated by charged ions. These tiny particles, with positive or negative charges, enter or exit the cell, creating a difference in charge that enables communication. In the case of the brain cells, sodium ions exchange across the cell membrane with potassium ions which leads to a potential difference that results in the electrical signal being passed on to the next cell. These exchanges enable our brain cells to, for example, deliver sensory information from the body to our brain, thanks to which we know when we touch, smell, see, or hear something.
These exchanges of ions occur not just in brain cells but in every cell of our body. The cell membrane, the packaging keeping the cell together, plays a critical role in this communication. It is semi-permeable, meaning that it only allows specific substances to pass through. Ion channels, special proteins embedded in the membrane, act like gates that control the movement of ions in and out of the cell. While bioelectricity refers to the movement of ions across cell membranes, the bioelectric code indicates how ions and ion channels work together to enable cell communication.
‘We are Electric’ spans many developments and stresses the immense potential of learning how to navigate bioelectricity to cure our bodies. The book provides a detailed history of cell communication and organizes the literature thematically, starting with better-known developments such as cardiac pacemakers, sensory implants in the brain, and spinal regeneration, before expanding into more sophisticated advances in ageing, cancer detection and treatment, embryo development, and stem cell behaviour. Finally, Adee looks into the future of bioelectronics, novel organic materials, and applications of electricity to enhance cognition and memory.
One such development is that of Chernet and Levin [6], who found that cancer cells have unusual electrical properties. They used electric signals to restore the natural electric state of these cells. This decreased the number of tumours, revealing that electric signalling could be a way to treat cancer.
Another promising advance discussed in the book could help us use technology to repair damaged body tissues. A group of researchers at the University of California has been working on a new method to control how living cells change and grow by controlling the voltage of a special type of cell called a stem cell. Stem cells are unique because they can turn into many different kinds of cells in the body, like muscle cells, skin cells, and nerve cells. By controlling the voltage of the stem cell's outer layer, the researchers were able to make it develop into the specific type of cell they wanted [7].
The field of bioelectricity is now buzzing with exciting developments, but it took it over two hundred years to arrive where it is today. Around the 1780s, Galvani began researching the role of electricity in muscular motion, but it was disputed by Volta and overshadowed by his invention of the battery. In the years that followed, experiments in muscular stimulation became constrained to pseudoscientific experiments such as the electrification of a decapitated dog in public. This, in turn, stained the reputation of bioelectricity and discredited the scientists who wanted to pursue this topic without being associated with bringing back the dead.
Throughout the book, Adee explains the context of scientific innovation, including its reliance on venture capital (VC). One of the examples she gives is that of ClearEdge, a medical device that used electrical signals to distinguish between healthy and cancerous tissue during breast cancer surgery [8]. Despite the device showing promising results in trials, the company ran out of funding before any follow-up trials could have happened. This has been a common issue amongst companies which develop cutting-edge technologies—inventing is resource-intensive. However, thanks to governmental agencies like DARPA investing patient capital into high-risk high-reward research, the future of bioelectricity looks brighter.
Biological revolution is approaching. ‘We are Electric’ weaves together threads of research to advocate for harnessing the unlimited potential of biological communication between cells to help our body heal—be it tissue regeneration or cancer treatment. The curious reader seeking to understand this potential would benefit from Adee’s technical and engaging narrative.
References:
[1] Pai, Vaibhav P., et al. ‘Transmembrane Voltage Potential Controls Embryonic Eye Patterning in Xenopus Laevis’. Development, vol. 139, no. 2 (2012), pp. 313–23, doi: 10.1242/dev.073759
[2] Tseng A.-S., et al. ‘Induction of Vertebrate Regeneration by a Transient Sodium Current’. Journal of Neuroscience, vol. 30, no. 39 (2010), pp. 13192–13200, doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3315-10.2010
[3] Levin, Michael. ‘What Bodies Think About: Bioelectric Computation Beyond the Nervous System as Inspiration for New Machine Learning Platforms’. The Thirty-second Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS). Palais des Congrès de Montréal, Montréal, Canada. 4 December 2018, slide 49 https://media.neurips.cc/Conferences/...
[4] Sheehan, Paul. ‘Bioelectronics for Tissue Regeneration’. Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency https://www.darpa.mil/program/bioelec...
[5] https://robertobecker.net/
[6] Chernet, Brook, and Michael Levin. ‘Endogenous Voltage Potentials and the Microenvironment: Bioelectric Signals that Reveal, Induce and Normalize Cancer’. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Oncology, Suppl. 1:S1-002 (2013), doi: 10.4172/2324-9110
[7] Feng J. F., et al. ‘Electrical Guidance of Human Stem Cells in the Rat Brain’. Stem Cell Reports, vol. 9, no. 1 (2017), pp. 177–89, doi: 10.1016/j.stemcr.2017.05.035
[8] Dixon, J. Michael, et al. ‘Intra-operative assessment of excised breast tumour margins using ClearEdge imaging device’. European Journal of Surgical Oncology 42 (2016), pp. 1834–40, doi: 10.1016/j. ejso.2016.07.141
An acclaimed science journalist investigates biological electricity and its significance for curing diseases.
After growing an eye on a frog’s stomach [1] and regrowing a frog’s severed leg [2], Michael Levin’s Lab at Tufts University is now working on regrowing fingers in mice [3]. His lab’s breakthroughs for tissue regeneration are funded by a $16 million investment from DARPA, a US research agency [4]. Scientists like him are learning how to harness the power of natural bioelectricity using artificial stimulation to achieve remarkable results.
Sally Adee argues that the bioelectrical revolution is the future. In her book ‘We Are Electric’, she calls for an integrated understanding of bioelectricity—a specific property of cell communication, which so far has been siloed into subdisciplines. The book builds upon the late 20th-century work of Robert O. Becker’s ‘The Body Electric’ [5], providing a fresh perspective on new developments while explaining the science behind them.
For instance, our thinking processes are thanks to our brain cells communicating through electrical signals generated by charged ions. These tiny particles, with positive or negative charges, enter or exit the cell, creating a difference in charge that enables communication. In the case of the brain cells, sodium ions exchange across the cell membrane with potassium ions which leads to a potential difference that results in the electrical signal being passed on to the next cell. These exchanges enable our brain cells to, for example, deliver sensory information from the body to our brain, thanks to which we know when we touch, smell, see, or hear something.
These exchanges of ions occur not just in brain cells but in every cell of our body. The cell membrane, the packaging keeping the cell together, plays a critical role in this communication. It is semi-permeable, meaning that it only allows specific substances to pass through. Ion channels, special proteins embedded in the membrane, act like gates that control the movement of ions in and out of the cell. While bioelectricity refers to the movement of ions across cell membranes, the bioelectric code indicates how ions and ion channels work together to enable cell communication.
‘We are Electric’ spans many developments and stresses the immense potential of learning how to navigate bioelectricity to cure our bodies. The book provides a detailed history of cell communication and organizes the literature thematically, starting with better-known developments such as cardiac pacemakers, sensory implants in the brain, and spinal regeneration, before expanding into more sophisticated advances in ageing, cancer detection and treatment, embryo development, and stem cell behaviour. Finally, Adee looks into the future of bioelectronics, novel organic materials, and applications of electricity to enhance cognition and memory.
One such development is that of Chernet and Levin [6], who found that cancer cells have unusual electrical properties. They used electric signals to restore the natural electric state of these cells. This decreased the number of tumours, revealing that electric signalling could be a way to treat cancer.
Another promising advance discussed in the book could help us use technology to repair damaged body tissues. A group of researchers at the University of California has been working on a new method to control how living cells change and grow by controlling the voltage of a special type of cell called a stem cell. Stem cells are unique because they can turn into many different kinds of cells in the body, like muscle cells, skin cells, and nerve cells. By controlling the voltage of the stem cell's outer layer, the researchers were able to make it develop into the specific type of cell they wanted [7].
The field of bioelectricity is now buzzing with exciting developments, but it took it over two hundred years to arrive where it is today. Around the 1780s, Galvani began researching the role of electricity in muscular motion, but it was disputed by Volta and overshadowed by his invention of the battery. In the years that followed, experiments in muscular stimulation became constrained to pseudoscientific experiments such as the electrification of a decapitated dog in public. This, in turn, stained the reputation of bioelectricity and discredited the scientists who wanted to pursue this topic without being associated with bringing back the dead.
Throughout the book, Adee explains the context of scientific innovation, including its reliance on venture capital (VC). One of the examples she gives is that of ClearEdge, a medical device that used electrical signals to distinguish between healthy and cancerous tissue during breast cancer surgery [8]. Despite the device showing promising results in trials, the company ran out of funding before any follow-up trials could have happened. This has been a common issue amongst companies which develop cutting-edge technologies—inventing is resource-intensive. However, thanks to governmental agencies like DARPA investing patient capital into high-risk high-reward research, the future of bioelectricity looks brighter.
Biological revolution is approaching. ‘We are Electric’ weaves together threads of research to advocate for harnessing the unlimited potential of biological communication between cells to help our body heal—be it tissue regeneration or cancer treatment. The curious reader seeking to understand this potential would benefit from Adee’s technical and engaging narrative.
References:
[1] Pai, Vaibhav P., et al. ‘Transmembrane Voltage Potential Controls Embryonic Eye Patterning in Xenopus Laevis’. Development, vol. 139, no. 2 (2012), pp. 313–23, doi: 10.1242/dev.073759
[2] Tseng A.-S., et al. ‘Induction of Vertebrate Regeneration by a Transient Sodium Current’. Journal of Neuroscience, vol. 30, no. 39 (2010), pp. 13192–13200, doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3315-10.2010
[3] Levin, Michael. ‘What Bodies Think About: Bioelectric Computation Beyond the Nervous System as Inspiration for New Machine Learning Platforms’. The Thirty-second Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS). Palais des Congrès de Montréal, Montréal, Canada. 4 December 2018, slide 49 https://media.neurips.cc/Conferences/...
[4] Sheehan, Paul. ‘Bioelectronics for Tissue Regeneration’. Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency https://www.darpa.mil/program/bioelec...
[5] https://robertobecker.net/
[6] Chernet, Brook, and Michael Levin. ‘Endogenous Voltage Potentials and the Microenvironment: Bioelectric Signals that Reveal, Induce and Normalize Cancer’. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Oncology, Suppl. 1:S1-002 (2013), doi: 10.4172/2324-9110
[7] Feng J. F., et al. ‘Electrical Guidance of Human Stem Cells in the Rat Brain’. Stem Cell Reports, vol. 9, no. 1 (2017), pp. 177–89, doi: 10.1016/j.stemcr.2017.05.035
[8] Dixon, J. Michael, et al. ‘Intra-operative assessment of excised breast tumour margins using ClearEdge imaging device’. European Journal of Surgical Oncology 42 (2016), pp. 1834–40, doi: 10.1016/j. ejso.2016.07.141
January 10, 2023
Sally Adee is a science and technology journalist with a long history of "how human minds and bodies intersect with the machines we create". In 2012 she wrote a feature story on bioelectricity technology that Yuval Noah Harari cites in his excellent book Homo Deus. So she's been interested in the topic of bioelectricity for quite some time.
In this new book Adee takes us through the history and science of bioelectricity and discusses what the future may hold. It's a well-done popular science book on a fascinating topic. Especially fascinating is how much our understanding of the topic has advanced in the last few decades. We may now be poised on the brink of some significant breakthroughs.
What exactly is bioelectricity? It's the flow of charged particles through our bodies. Unlike electricity outside our bodies which involve the flow of electrons, bioelectricity involves the flow of ions. Bioelectricity does things like send signals from our nerves to our brains, allow our muscles to contract, and more.
You're probably familiar with an EEG - the line representing the heartbeat as a wave. You may have had one yourself at your doctor's office or seen one on a medical TV show. An EEG is actually a recording of the electrical pulses of the heart. "Brain waves" are also measures of the electrical impulses produced in your brain. In short, a lot of what our bodies do is accomplished through bioelectricity.
If you've been following my book reviews for a while you know I'm a big fan of history and science. Adee does a great job with the history, showing how our understanding of bioelectricity has advanced in fits and starts. But where she really shines is in her exploration of what may come next. The capability to use electricity to control or even reverse cancer is just one area of current (no pun intended) research.
RATING: Four Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐
I read an advanced copy of the book courtesy of Netgalley and Hachette Books. Publication Day is February 28, 2023, but you can preorder now.
In this new book Adee takes us through the history and science of bioelectricity and discusses what the future may hold. It's a well-done popular science book on a fascinating topic. Especially fascinating is how much our understanding of the topic has advanced in the last few decades. We may now be poised on the brink of some significant breakthroughs.
What exactly is bioelectricity? It's the flow of charged particles through our bodies. Unlike electricity outside our bodies which involve the flow of electrons, bioelectricity involves the flow of ions. Bioelectricity does things like send signals from our nerves to our brains, allow our muscles to contract, and more.
You're probably familiar with an EEG - the line representing the heartbeat as a wave. You may have had one yourself at your doctor's office or seen one on a medical TV show. An EEG is actually a recording of the electrical pulses of the heart. "Brain waves" are also measures of the electrical impulses produced in your brain. In short, a lot of what our bodies do is accomplished through bioelectricity.
If you've been following my book reviews for a while you know I'm a big fan of history and science. Adee does a great job with the history, showing how our understanding of bioelectricity has advanced in fits and starts. But where she really shines is in her exploration of what may come next. The capability to use electricity to control or even reverse cancer is just one area of current (no pun intended) research.
RATING: Four Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐
I read an advanced copy of the book courtesy of Netgalley and Hachette Books. Publication Day is February 28, 2023, but you can preorder now.
June 13, 2023
“We are electric” is a book about the electric code within human beings, how important it is to the operation of our bodies and minds, and how understanding it is leading to breakthroughs in medicine and the advancement of health and longevity.
Most people know that our hearts and nerves operate through changes in electric potential within our bodies. We’ve seen how electric shocks can revitalise those whose hearts have stopped (through watching episodes of “ER”) and know about pacemakers and electroshock therapy. However, many of us are largely not aware that electric energy is at the core of the body's cellular functions.
This book explains that every type of cell in our bodies – blood, tissue, bones, and nerves – operate at their own defined voltages. It’s the differences in voltage potential that signals to stems cells what type of function they will become. This difference in voltages among cells can also be used to detect and potentially reprogram cancer cells.
The book also talks about how electricity is involved in cellular regeneration and how it might be able to stimulate tissue regeneration in the body. Some tissues within humans including stomach linings, the liver and apparently finger tips of children under 11 years of age (who knew this?) can regenerate naturally with people. But scientists are now experimenting with ways to regenerate other tissues with the help of electric currents. This holds great potential for organ transplants without the need for immune supressent drugs.
Further the book talks about how much bioelectricity is important in the healing of wounds.
The thing I liked best about "We are electric" was that it revealed some of the work on bioelectricity that I was not aware of previously.
Some of the book's ideas were as revolutionary to me as the understanding of epigenetics ("Above the genes"), the fact that human beings contain multitudes of microbes, and that trees communicate with each other via fungus. As Werner Heisenberg once said, “Not only is the universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think”.
This book makes the study of biolelectrics slightly less strange - but definitely better understood.
In terms of negatives about “We are electric” I felt that the initial part of the book, covering the more commonly understood discoveries of electricity in the body, was slow. As a result, it took me a bit of time to get into the book. And at the same time once it got into the parts about future potential, I felt the book should. Have kept going.
In the end I learned a lot about bioelectricity and look forward to reading other authors who will almost certainly write more on this incredibly interesting and necessary topic.
It was well worth the read and I’m grateful to author Sally Adee for introducing me to this topic. I'll definitely look for more reading on this truly fascinating subject.
Most people know that our hearts and nerves operate through changes in electric potential within our bodies. We’ve seen how electric shocks can revitalise those whose hearts have stopped (through watching episodes of “ER”) and know about pacemakers and electroshock therapy. However, many of us are largely not aware that electric energy is at the core of the body's cellular functions.
This book explains that every type of cell in our bodies – blood, tissue, bones, and nerves – operate at their own defined voltages. It’s the differences in voltage potential that signals to stems cells what type of function they will become. This difference in voltages among cells can also be used to detect and potentially reprogram cancer cells.
The book also talks about how electricity is involved in cellular regeneration and how it might be able to stimulate tissue regeneration in the body. Some tissues within humans including stomach linings, the liver and apparently finger tips of children under 11 years of age (who knew this?) can regenerate naturally with people. But scientists are now experimenting with ways to regenerate other tissues with the help of electric currents. This holds great potential for organ transplants without the need for immune supressent drugs.
Further the book talks about how much bioelectricity is important in the healing of wounds.
The thing I liked best about "We are electric" was that it revealed some of the work on bioelectricity that I was not aware of previously.
Some of the book's ideas were as revolutionary to me as the understanding of epigenetics ("Above the genes"), the fact that human beings contain multitudes of microbes, and that trees communicate with each other via fungus. As Werner Heisenberg once said, “Not only is the universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think”.
This book makes the study of biolelectrics slightly less strange - but definitely better understood.
In terms of negatives about “We are electric” I felt that the initial part of the book, covering the more commonly understood discoveries of electricity in the body, was slow. As a result, it took me a bit of time to get into the book. And at the same time once it got into the parts about future potential, I felt the book should. Have kept going.
In the end I learned a lot about bioelectricity and look forward to reading other authors who will almost certainly write more on this incredibly interesting and necessary topic.
It was well worth the read and I’m grateful to author Sally Adee for introducing me to this topic. I'll definitely look for more reading on this truly fascinating subject.
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