A clear, intriguing examination of a field with huge potential.
A science writer explores bioelectricity and the developments of exciting new electrical treatments.
While the idea that our minds and bodies are powered by electricity is well known, Adee shows how recent cutting-edge research suggests remarkable possibilities. Devices such as pacemakers and defibrillators are commonplace, but scientists are now having success using electrical impulses to treat rheumatoid arthritis and even spinal damage and paralysis. There is evidence that small, controlled jolts of electricity delivered from outside the skull can temporarily improve mental clarity and physical performance. When Adee volunteered to try it, she was amazed at the results, although she acknowledges that the process is still experimental. It has been a long road so far, and the author spends the first third of the book tracing the research that established the existence of bioelectricity and how it works. In the early days, the field attracted an array of quacks, con men and pseudo-scientists, which was a hindrance to serious work. There was also the problem that medical researchers and physicists lacked a shared scientific language. Progress occurred anyway, and the structure of the nervous system was gradually uncovered. After that, the roles of electrical signals in cell division, communication, and specialization became a focus of study. All of these developments have opened important new frontiers, including possible effective treatments for cancer. Some of the current research projects that Adee discusses—e.g., using electrical diodes to implant memories—sound like they belong more in science fiction. Yet there was a time when electroencephalogram technology, now used widely in brain scanning, was dismissed as ludicrous. Adee emphasizes that much of the new research will inevitably hit dead ends, as much scientific inquiry inevitably does, and many experiment results are proving difficult to reliably replicate. Nevertheless, she provides a wealth of material to think about.
A clear, intriguing examination of a field with huge potential.Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2023
ISBN: 9780306826627
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Hachette
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.
A study of swimming as sport, survival method, basis for community, and route to physical and mental well-being.
For Bay Area writer Tsui (American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, 2009), swimming is in her blood. As she recounts, her parents met in a Hong Kong swimming pool, and she often visited the beach as a child and competed on a swim team in high school. Midway through the engaging narrative, the author explains how she rejoined the team at age 40, just as her 6-year-old was signing up for the first time. Chronicling her interviews with scientists and swimmers alike, Tsui notes the many health benefits of swimming, some of which are mental. Swimmers often achieve the “flow” state and get their best ideas while in the water. Her travels took her from the California coast, where she dove for abalone and swam from Alcatraz back to San Francisco, to Tokyo, where she heard about the “samurai swimming” martial arts tradition. In Iceland, she met Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, a local celebrity who, in 1984, survived six hours in a winter sea after his fishing vessel capsized, earning him the nickname “the human seal.” Although humans are generally adapted to life on land, the author discovered that some have extra advantages in the water. The Bajau people of Indonesia, for instance, can do 10-minute free dives while hunting because their spleens are 50% larger than average. For most, though, it’s simply a matter of practice. Tsui discussed swimming with Dara Torres, who became the oldest Olympic swimmer at age 41, and swam with Kim Chambers, one of the few people to complete the daunting Oceans Seven marathon swim challenge. Drawing on personal experience, history, biology, and social science, the author conveys the appeal of “an unflinching giving-over to an element” and makes a convincing case for broader access to swimming education (372,000 people still drown annually).
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61620-786-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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