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 ...

You might have heard of electrets being used in microphones, but do you know what they are? Electrets produce a semi-permanent static electric field, similar to how a magnet produces a magnetic field.

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.