We Are Electric

Inside the 200-Year Hunt for Our Body's Bioelectric Code, and What the Future Holds

By: Sally Adee

Narrated by: Sally Adee

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 biome: the bacterial fauna that populate our gut and can so profoundly affect our health. In We Are Electric we cross into new scientific understanding: 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 remarkable: an undo switch for cancer that could flip malignant cells back into healthy ones; the ability to regenerate cells, organs, even limbs; to slow 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 future: 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.

Critic reviews

"Sally Adee manages that most difficult feat in science writing: taking a subject you didn’t know you cared about and making it genuinely fascinating and exciting. The ‘ohmigod-that’s-so-cool’ moments come thick and fast as she brings the science up to date, investigating today’s cutting edge and what the future may hold for bioelectric medicine. It’s a vast and hugely exciting area of scientific research, shared with infectious enthusiasm, a real depth of knowledge, a smart and funny turn of phrase. You’ll never think of life in the same way again."—Caroline Williams, author of Move!: The New Science of Body Over Mind

"A revelatory survey of bioelectricity...[Adee] masterfully shows the implications of new discoveries and spotlights where the science doesn’t add up....With lucid explanations and fascinating anecdotes, Adee is the perfect guide to this hidden realm. Pop science fans, take note."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

A-Level Substance; B-Level Writing; C+ Performance

I found the substance of this book to be fascinating. Adee has undertaken great research, and obviously has a very strong grasp of her subject. So I would definitely recommend the book, probably more in written form than on Audible. I find her writing to be a bit over the top. I did not like her performance of this book at all. Maybe she is trying to hard.

Awesome subject material

Learned a lot of important details. So much information I found myself backing up and reading chapters for a second time.

Medical hope for the future

Having a electrical engineering background, and having an understanding of electricity that resides in the heart and the brain, l thought that I knew pretty much everything about this topic. instead, I learned so much and I feel that there is so much hope for the future by studying electric current in the body. I have always believed that everything on earth is based on electricity, and the earth is the battery. Thank you for this wonderful book. I think it’s amazing. I think that most people who have no idea what electricity is all about may find the beginning part a little boring but when you describe how it affects health and in particular cancer, I think most people will find this to be a very dynamic and triumphant book.

Research and science made interesting!

Cutting edge, comprehensive review and chronicle of recent medical research communicated in plain English. Thank you, Sally Ade, for a fast moving and well organized collection of stories depicting a view of medical research from forty thousand feet with a final close up view bringing current research into focus. May you inspire a new generation of medical scientists and practitioners. I have listened twice and am preparing to listen again with Notes (the app). At 70 years old, I have watched the curve of medical discoveries accelerate logarithmically over the past 10 years. 3/26/2023 22:30 Eastern GJBrownDO

What a great writer and a wonderful speaker

I really enjoyed this book and the history of bioelectricity. Compelling stories and great insights. Lots of things to look into based on her review of where the science is. Extremely compelling.