There’s a shocking lack of understanding of the physics underlying this commonplace phenomenon, but researchers are on the ...

The familiar phenomenon has puzzled researchers for centuries, but experiments are finally making sense of its unruly behaviours.

Seemingly random charging of identical materials depends on the carbonaceous molecules stuck to their surfaces ...

When particles in volcanic ash cloud rub together, some pick up positive charge and others negative – now physicists have finally elucidated how these different charges are determined ...

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 ...

If you’ve ever felt a shock after rubbing your hair with a balloon or shuffling across a carpet, you’ll know that static electricity can be a real pain. But for the scientists who study it, the pain ...