I wish this has been a better book. I felt like she really wanted to write about her favorite topic, ion channels in cells, but no one was interested in it so she picked this electricity in the body theme but it wasn't well knit together. She got deep into some technical concepts and then just started reeling off examples and I never really got a through line of anything. It felt a bit too textbook at times and I didn't see connections between her examples. She has a very dry British sense of humour and is clearly very widely read but it just did not come through well in this book.

Dull and full of irrelevant trivia. ( )

It was an interesting book about how the body uses electricity in all sorts of different ways, the most obvious being the control of the motor functions.

Some of the biology was way over my head, but the other parts were quite straightforward to understand. There were a couple of glaring errors, but these were on the electrical side, and the sub title of the book about it being about the human body is not strictly accurate as she covers all sorts of life, from plants to animals and how they use electricity. ( )

Extremely interesting book about how electricity helps the human body (as well as animals and plants) function correctly and what happens when a spanner gets thrown in the works. The book is not overly technical and has a few illustrations that help with explanations. ( )

Rating: 4 of 5

Okay, so I think I'll have to read The Spark of Life at least three or four more times to fully understand everything Ashcroft covered. It was fascinating to learn the history of electricity and I couldn't get enough of Chapter 9, "The Doors of Perception."

Even for non-scientists, like moi, there is much to learn from The Spark of Life despite its scientific terminology and explanations. What I loved most about the book was how much it made (is making) me think and wonder.

The freakiest part of the whole book was pages 309-311 when Ashcroft shared her desire for "a more intimate connection" between the brain and a computer. To paraphrase, she'd like the ability to physically connect her brain to a computer in order to instantly access memories and important information. She admits this is "currently only science fiction. But science fiction often has a way of becoming science fact." Anyone see this episode of X-Files? Or this episode of Doctor Who? I'll pass, thank you very much.

Notes to self:

"Ion channels are truly the 'spark of life' for they govern every aspect of our behavior (p.5)."

Channel dysfunction is responsible for many diseases.

Luigi Galvani first discovered 'animal electricity' = galvanism

Thomas-Francois Dalibard, not Ben Franklin, was the first to demonstrate that lightning is an electrical discharge.

Alessandro Volta invested the first electric battery = volt (unit of electrical potential)

"We too are electrical machines and the electrical currents lie at the heart of life itself (p.33)."

Opposite charges attract one another. Similar charges repel. (p.36)

Electrical signal travels almost the speed of light: 186 million miles per second; nerve impulses at 0.07 miles per second. (p. 37) Bioelectricity

Ion channels are the gatekeepers of the cell.

Queen of Poisons = aconite or aconitine which comes from monkshood (wolfsbane) a pretty plant with a tall spike of blue helmet-shaped flowers. (pp. 75-76)

Some species of rhododendron = grayanotoxin. Bees feed on those flowers, people eat those bees' honey = 'mad honey syndrome' (p.77)

"'The right dose differentiates a poison and a remedy' - Paracelsus (p.81).

"Electrical eel, torpedo (sting ray) (p.122) ( )