Extra: Try different types of metals as electrodes for your batteries. Do you think a battery with two pennies as electrodes would generate electricity? What about a battery with a penny and a nickel?

Procedure To test your electroscope, create some static electricity by rubbing a blown-up balloon on a Styrofoam plate. Rub the Styrofoam plate several times with the balloon.

Through the years, scientists have been wondering why and how static electricity happens. The new study might have the answers why petting your cat leads to it.

Researchers have been looking for a way to harness the energy in our movements to power our devices. A new way of harvesting friction and static electricity may be the key.

Scientists are working to harness the power of the static electricity to power our devices. It's a surprisingly mysterious natural phenomenon.

BILLERICA, Mass. — To understand what's being made at Static Clean International in Billerica, one needs to start with a science experiment. Chuck Dignan, the vice president of operations for ...

Scientists conventionally believed that static electricity required friction between two different non-metals, which would tug at their electrons with different amounts of force.

Honeybees flying over a sensor measuring atmospheric voltage sparked a look into how insect-induced static electricity might affect the atmosphere.

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.