The Energy of Life: The Science of What Makes Our Minds and Bodies Work
"Energy" is a word often used loosely to refer to any of a host of vague concepts hiding within spirituality and psychology, along with its more mundane technical meaning in physics. Embracing rather than rejecting our ambiguity, biochemist Guy Brown shows us how the E in E=mc2 influences and informs our cells, bodies, and minds inThe Energy of Life: The Science of What Makes Our Minds and Bodies Work. As a working scientist specializing in human bioenergetics, Brown needs to know how to keep all his natural conceptions of energy separate but related, and he shares with the reader his understanding of how it all fits together.Starting with an introduction to the basics of physical understandings of energy and thermodynamics, easily grasped even by English majors, he proceeds to break down how this quality of matter fuels our daily lives, from solar and geothermal radiation through platters of buffalo wings to maintaining alertness at all-staff meetings. Feelings of sexual and mental energy aren't excluded from his analysis; in fact, as focuses of attention for most readers, the author is savvy enough to emphasize them. Practical advice on maintaining nutritional energy balance to stay healthy and wide awake is interlaced with the more theoretical information, and this synergy makesThe Energy of Lifean invigorating read.--Rob Lightner