Proceedings Of The Academy Of Natural Sciences Vol 156 2007

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 have the ability to 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.

"Publications of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia": v. 53, 1901, p. 788-794.

A unique reconstruction of the paleobiology of fossil non-human primates and their key role in inferring evolutionary processes on earth.

H. Wilson