Animal Electricity

Animal electricity and the birth of electrophysiology: the legacy of Luigi Galvani.

Preceded by a companion paper on Galvani's life, this article is written on the occasion of the bicentenary of the death of Luigi Galvani. From his studies on the effects of electricity on frogs, the scientist of Bologna derived the hypothesis that animal tissues are endowed with an intrinsic electricity that is involved in fundamental physiological processes such as nerve conduction and muscle...

Waste to Electricity Generation in Thailand: Technology, Policy, Generation Cost, and Incentives of Investment

Waste-to-Energy is a challenging management in developing countries. There are many different technologies to generate electricity or heat from wastes. However, reuse and recycling are first prioritized as left a fraction of waste can be used as energy recovery. The initial cost to generate electricity from solid waste incineration is prohibitively high due to its cost of advance technology and...

Giovanni Aldini: from animal electricity to human brain stimulation.

Two hundred years ago, Giovanni Aldini published a highly influential book that reported experiments in which the principles of Luigi Galvani (animal electricity) and Alessandro Volta (bimetallic electricity) were used together for the first time. Aldini was born in Bologna in 1762 and graduated in physics at the University of his native town in 1782. As nephew and assistant of Galvani, he acti...

Animal electricity, Ca2+ and muscle contraction. A brief history of muscle research.

This brief review attempts to summarize some of the major phases of muscle research from Leeuwenhoek's description of sarcomeres in 1674, through Galvani's observation of "animal electricity" in 1791, to the discovery of Ca2+ as the key messenger in the coupling of nerve excitation to muscle contraction. The emerging molecular mechanism of the contraction process is one of the great achievement...

Additional Observations on Animal Electricity

Optimization of Energy Consumption in Milk Production Units through Integration of Data Envelopment Analysis Approach and Sensitivity Analysis

The aims of this study were to evaluate the energy consumption and its modeling in industrial milk production units using data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach and sensitivity analysis. Data were collected from 44 industrial milk production units in Guilan province of Iran with face to face questionnaire method during 2012-2013. Inputs included animal feed, fossil fuels, electricity, machine...