To see accurate pricing, please choose your delivery country.
 
 
United States
£ GBP
All Shops

British Wildlife

8 issues per year 84 pages per issue Subscription only

British Wildlife is the leading natural history magazine in the UK, providing essential reading for both enthusiast and professional naturalists and wildlife conservationists. Published eight times a year, British Wildlife bridges the gap between popular writing and scientific literature through a combination of long-form articles, regular columns and reports, book reviews and letters.

Subscriptions from £33 per year

Conservation Land Management

4 issues per year 44 pages per issue Subscription only

Conservation Land Management (CLM) is a quarterly magazine that is widely regarded as essential reading for all who are involved in land management for nature conservation, across the British Isles. CLM includes long-form articles, events listings, publication reviews, new product information and updates, reports of conferences and letters.

Subscriptions from £26 per year
Academic & Professional Books  Reference  Physical Sciences  Popular Science

The Spark of Life Electricity in the Human Body

Popular Science
By: Frances Ashcroft(Author)
352 pages, b/w illustrations
Publisher: Allen Lane
The Spark of Life
Click to have a closer look
Select version
  • The Spark of Life ISBN: 9780141046532 Paperback May 2013 Not in stock: Usually dispatched within 5 days
    £10.99
    #204490
  • The Spark of Life ISBN: 9781846143014 Hardback Jun 2012 Out of Print #197875
Selected version: £10.99
About this book Customer reviews Biography Related titles

About this book

We are all familiar with the idea that machines are powered by electricity, but perhaps not so aware that this is also true for ourselves. The Spark of Life is a spectacular account of the body electric, showing how, from before conception to the last breath we draw, electrical signals in our cells are essential to everything we think and do. These signals are produced by some amazing proteins that sit at the forefront of current scientific research – the ion channels. They are found in every cell in Earth and they govern every aspect of our lives, from consciousness to sexual attraction, fighting infection, our ability to see and hear, and the beating of our hearts. Ion channels are truly the 'spark of life'.

Award-winning physiologist Frances Ashcroft weaves real-life stories with the latest scientific findings to explain the fundamental role of ion channels in our bodies. What happens when you have a heart attack? Why does an electric eel not shock itself? Can someone really die of fright? Why does Viagra turn the world blue? How do cocaine, LSD and morphine work? Why do chilli peppers taste hot? How do vampire bats sense their prey? Was Mary Shelley right when she inferred that electricity is the 'Spark of Life?

Frances Ashcroft explains all this and more with wit and clarity. She introduces a cast of extraordinary personalities whose work has charted the links between molecule and mind over the centuries. She recounts the scientific detective stories involved in the development of our ideas about animal electricity, and shows how these are intimately entwined with our understanding of electricity itself. And she describes how the latest advances have led to the identification, and in some cases the cure, of a new class of disease. Anyone who has ever wondered about what makes us human will find The Spark of Life a revelation.

Customer Reviews

Biography

Frances Ashcroft is Professor of Physiology at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Trinity College Oxford. She is also Director of OXION, a consortium of scientists studying ion channels, the heroes of this book. Her scientific research focuses on how a rise in your blood sugar level stimulates the release of insulin and what why this process goes wrong in diabetes. She has won many prizes for her research, most recently the L'Oreal/UNESCO 2012 Women in Science award. Her first book for the general reader was Life at the Extremes: The Science of Survival.

Popular Science
By: Frances Ashcroft(Author)
352 pages, b/w illustrations
Publisher: Allen Lane
Media reviews

"A rare gift for making difficult subjects accessible and fascinating [...] A wonderful book"
- Bill Bryson

"Ashcroft achieves the sort of rich simplicity most science writers can only dream about [...] this book carries the eponymous spark of life"
- Sunday Telegraph

"She communicates complex science with engaging passion and eloquence"
- Helen Dunmore, Observer

"Compelling and very readable, an excellent writer"
Literary Review

"Riveting [...] she has a stock of good tales"
- New Scientist, selected as one of the Ten Books to look out for in 2012

"Lively, conversational prose, refreshingly accessible to any lay reader [...] a positively charged little book"
- Daily Telegraph

Current promotions
New and Forthcoming BooksNHBS Moth TrapBritish Wildlife MagazineBuyers Guides