Static electricity often just seems like an everyday annoyance when a wool sweater crackles as you pull it off, or when a doorknob delivers an unexpected zap. Regardless, the phenomenon is much more ...

Static electricity was first observed in 600 BC, but researchers have struggled to explain how it is caused by rubbing. With a better understanding of the mechanisms at play, researchers potentially ...

Ticks can be attracted across air gaps several times larger than themselves by the static electricity that their hosts naturally accumulate, researchers at the University of Bristol have discovered.

Scientists at Northwestern University may have figured out why walking on carpet in your socks, petting your furry friend, or rubbing a balloon on your hair creates static electricity. In a new study, ...

As humans we often think we have a pretty good handle on the basics of the way the world works, from an intuition about gravity good enough to let us walk around, play baseball, and land spacecraft on ...

When you rub a balloon on your hair to make it float and cling, you might not think of it as one of the deepest – and strangest – mysteries of science. When you reach out to open a door and your ...

James is a published author with multiple pop-history and science books to his name. He specializes in history, space, strange science, and anything out of the ordinary.View full profile James is a ...

Butterflies and moths collect so much static electricity whilst in flight, that pollen grains from flowers can be pulled by static electricity across air gaps of several millimetres or centimetres.

Anyone who has ever pet a cat or shuffled their feet across the carpet knows that rubbing objects together generates static electricity. But an explanation for this phenomenon has eluded researchers ...