Around 2,500 people die in lightning strikes around India each year. — © AFP Around 2,500 people die in lightning strikes around India each year. — © AFP By ...

Physicists have long known how lightning ends, in a blinding discharge that can heat air hotter than the surface of the Sun, but the precise trigger that starts a bolt inside a cloud has remained ...

Using lasers as tweezers to understand cloud electrification might sound like science fiction, but at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) it is a reality. By trapping and charging ...

Using a precisely aligned pair of laser beams, scientists can now hold a single aerosol particle in place and monitor how it charges up. The particle’s glow signals each step in its changing ...

A green spectacle. With protective eyewear, ISTA PHD student Andrea Stöllner takes a glimpse into the experimental chamber (in the foreground) where two laser beams trap a single particle. One ...