80-year-old mystery in static electricity finally solved

Historically, contact electrification (CE) was humanity's first and only source of electricity up until around the 18th century, yet its true nature is still elusive. Today it is considered a core component of technologies ...

Rare 'red sprites' seen from ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile

This new image taken of the skies above Chile's Atacama Desert near the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) La Silla Observatory, shows bright red streaks in the sky known as red sprites. Red sprites are large-scale electrical ...

Impact of climate on river chemistry across the United States

Rivers flow across many kinds of terrain, interacting with soil, rocks, microbes, and roots. River water therefore carries signatures of everything it interacts with, and its chemistry reflects the response of the critical ...

A probabilistic model for classifying temporary rivers

Temporary rivers are streams that can dry up during portions of the year. Although they are common in many environments and have important effects on the local ecosystem, compared to streams that consistently flow, temporary ...

Early Earth's atmosphere was less conducive to lightning

In 1952, Stanley Miller and Harold Urey made sparks fly in a gas-filled flask meant to reflect the composition of Earth's atmosphere around 3.8 billion years ago. Their results suggested that lightning could have led to prebiotic ...

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