Galvani's Spark

Galvani's Spark
Author: Alan McComas
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2011-08-08
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0199395950

Galvani's Spark chronicles the gradual understanding of the nerve impulse which is the basis of all thoughts, sensations and actions. The story begins with Luigi Galvani's chance observation of a spark from a friction machine causing a frog's leg to twitch from across the room. The accurate recording and the understanding of the properties of the nerve fiber membrane that makes the impulse possible became the objectives of neuroscientists for over 200 years. The author, Alan J. McComas finely interweaves the stories, the challenges, and the controversies of the most prominent figures in neuroscience, from the histological descriptions of nerve cells by Cajal to the discovery of a three-dimensional structure of ion channels in cell membranes by MacKinnon. Along the way he details the first recordings of the impulse with a cathode ray oscilloscope by Gasser and Erlanger, Adrian's discovery that stimulus intensity is coded by the frequency of nerve impulses, and Hodgkin and Huxley's brilliant voltage clamp experiments, amongst many others. The recognition by Galvani that muscles and nerves have an electrical component triggered the field of neurophysiology and in turn has produced some of the greatest discoveries in neuroscience. 16 investigators of the nerve impulse went on to win or share Nobel prizes and this book not only emphasizes their work but also traces their brilliant careers. For anyone interested in the nervous system and the history of neuroscience, Galvani's Spark: The Story of the Nerve Impulse is essential reading.

Galvani's Spark

Galvani's Spark
Author: Alan J. McComas
Publisher:
Total Pages: 391
Release: 2011
Genre: Action potentials (Electrophysiology)
ISBN: 9780199897094

Galvani's Spark describes the gradual understanding of the nerve impulse. Proceeding from a chance observation on a frog leg, to studies on squid giant axons and bacteria, this book concludes with the increasing realization that ion channells are responsible for a variety of clinical disorders.--[Source inconnue].

Spark from the Deep

Spark from the Deep
Author: William J. Turkel
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press+ORM
Total Pages: 428
Release: 2013-07-17
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1421409941

How encounters with strongly electric fish informed our grasp of electricity. Spark from the Deep tells the story of how human beings came to understand and use electricity by studying the evolved mechanisms of strongly electric fish. These animals can shock potential prey or would-be predators with high-powered electrical discharges. William J. Turkel asks completely fresh questions about the evolutionary, environmental, and historical aspects of people’s interest in electric fish. Stimulated by painful encounters with electric catfish, torpedos, and electric eels, people learned to harness the power of electric shock for medical therapies and eventually developed technologies to store, transmit, and control electricity. Now we look to these fish as an inspiration for engineering new sensors, computer interfaces, autonomous undersea robots, and energy-efficient batteries. Praise for Spark from the Deep “This beautifully written and exhaustively researched book traces the links between experiments on strongly electric fish and scientific understanding of electricity . . . Turkel’s book is a joy to read; it will entertain and educate scientists, historians, and anyone with an interest in the natural world.” —Choice “Turkel’s book convincingly reminds us that all the laptops and gadgets we surround ourselves with are remixes; altered versions of strongly electric fish. For that strange and insightful observation, this book ought to be widely read and enjoyed.” —Chris Conway, Endeavour “[I]t is refreshing to explore a book which takes seriously ancient encounters with manifestations of natural electricity as precursors to more recent innovations.” —James F. Stark, The British Journal for the History of Science

Works

Works
Author: graf Leo Tolstoy
Publisher:
Total Pages: 962
Release: 1904
Genre:
ISBN:

The Complete Works of Count Tolst‹Y Volume Xii

The Complete Works of Count Tolst‹Y Volume Xii
Author: Leo Tolstoy
Publisher: Prabhat Prakashan
Total Pages: 377
Release: 2018-01-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

A Turtle asked an Eagle to teach her how to fly. The Eagle advised her not to try, as she was not fit for it; but she insisted. The Eagle took her in his claws, raised her up, and dropped her: she fell on stones and broke to pieces.

A Cultural History of Physics

A Cultural History of Physics
Author: Karoly Simonyi
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 644
Release: 2012-01-25
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1439865116

While the physical sciences are a continuously evolving source of technology and of understanding about our world, they have become so specialized and rely on so much prerequisite knowledge that for many people today the divide between the sciences and the humanities seems even greater than it was when C. P. Snow delivered his famous 1959 lecture,