A bottle can disinfect drinking water by channelling static electricity built up from just 10 minutes of walking – no limited supply of water purification tablets or external power sources required.

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—specifically the triboelectric effect, aka contact electrification—is ubiquitous in our daily lives, found in such things as a balloon rubbed against one’s hair or styrofoam packing ...

New research shows that ticks can use static electricity to latch onto people or animals. The study in the journal Current Biology says the static charge given off by potential hosts can attract ticks ...

Static electricity can be a small annoyance for humans—a zap when you touch a doorknob, your hair shooting up when you pull off a sweater—but for small organisms, it can be a lifesaver. Static helps ...