Static electricity was first observed in 600 B.C., but researchers have struggled to explain how rubbing causes it. In 2019, researchers discovered nanosized surface deformations at play. The same ...

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, ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. When hair picks up an electrostatic charge, the strands repel each other and stand on end. Static electricity is so commonplace ...

Butterflies and moths collect so much static electricity while in flight, that pollen grains from flowers can be pulled by static electricity across air gaps of several millimeters or centimeters. The ...

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.

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 ...

Researchers discovered different electrical charges build up on the front and back parts of a sliding object, creating a current of static electricity. This explains why petting fur or shuffling along ...