WASHINGTON, Jan 16 (Reuters) - When Benjamin Franklin fashioned the first lightning rod in the 1750s following his famous experiment flying a kite with a key attached during a thunderstorm, the ...

Last year marked the 270th anniversary of Benjamin Franklin’s lightning rod — but it’s more than a relic of history. The Franklin rod remains in use today because the simple design exploits some ...

For the first time, scientists were able to show they can bend lightning from a storm with a laser. The project, 20 years in the making, required a super powerful laser to be shot into the sky. The ...

Forest fires, power cuts and damaged infrastructure…lightning fascinates and destroys in equal measure, causing as many as 24,000 deaths a year worldwide not to mention widespread destruction. Even ...

With a high-speed camera and the luck of being in the right place at the right time, physicist Marcelo Saba, a researcher at Brazil’s National Space Research Institute (INPE), and PhD candidate Diego ...

As we stood before the rich carvings, the bas-relief, and mediæval tracery of an old cathedral in a European city, our eyes wandered upward, beyond the gargoyles, beyond the fretwork, and finally ...