How do electric eels generate an electric shock?
From: http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/85107 http://www.sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm Angel Caputi, senior scientist and head of the department of integrative and computational neuroscience at the Institute for Biological Research “Clement Estable” in Uruguay, explains: …there are no specific studies on why eels can shock other animals without shocking themselves but one possible explanation could be that the severity of an electric shock depends on the amount and duration of the current flowing through any given area of the body. For the purposes of comparison, an eel’s body has roughly the same dimensions as an adult man’s arm. To cause an arm to spasm, 200 milliamps of current must be flowing into it for 50 milliseconds. An eel generates much less energy than that because its current flows for only 2 milliseconds. Additionally, a large part of the current dissipates into the water through the skin. This probably reduces the current even more near internal structures like the cen
