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Stories about: lightning


Diagnosing the Sun via Lightning Strikes

The Sun is notorious for its 11-year cycle, but also for the fact that it has sunspots on its surface that allow astronomers to analyze its “health” and, more importantly, predict space weather. But in years such as this one, when the solar minimum is in full effect, and very few sunspots are available, e...

12 November 2009
05:16 GMT

Final Fantasy XIII Arrives on December 17

Square Enix has revealed the launch date for Final Fantasy XIII through an online add campaign that was initially only intended to serve as a teaser.The publisher is set to put out the Japanese role playing game on December 17 but this date is only for the Japanese market, where the game can be picked up only for the...

8 September 2009
03:05 GMT

No Clear Plans for DLC for Final Fantasy XIII

The entire gaming industry seems crazed with downloadable content lately. Bethesda has put out no less than 5 decently sized DLC packs for Fallout 3, extending the interest in their post apocalyptic role playing experience by about one year.Other titles almost obligatorily get one DLC pack and some of them have even ...

3 September 2009
12:49 GMT

Final Fantasy XIII Creators Talk About Villains

Final Fantasy XIII is coming along nicely and Japanese gamers should get a chance to play the new role playing game before Christmas this year on the PlayStation 3, if all goes according to plan. And the creators of the videogame are now talking more about it and about what players will be up against in this fresh sp...

27 August 2009
16:31 GMT

Explaining Upwards Lightning

No one is surprised when lightning comes down form the sky, especially during one of those intense summer thunderstorms. But witnessing a bolt of light and electricity going upwards, until it almost reaches the upper limit of the atmosphere, is completely another story. One such formation was recently observed by exp...

24 August 2009
06:57 GMT

Scientists Learn How to 'Bend' Lasers

Experts from the University of Arizona in Tuscon (UAT) have managed a breakthrough in laser technology, as they have invented laser beams that can bend. The solution offers numerous practical applications, including the development of technologies that would allow lighting strikes to be turned away from large buildin...

10 April 2009
03:47 GMT

Sprites May Explain Some UFO Sightings

Since the time of the old Egyptians, UFO sightings have plagued humanity, with those going through such experiences being called heretics at first, then lunatics, and then simply ignored. Because of this massive popular interest in the matter, scientists have attempted to come up with logical explanations for these p...

24 February 2009
02:58 GMT

Firefly Probe Will Investigate Earth's Gamma Rays

Back in 1991, scientists were in for a big surprise after the launch of NASA's Compton Gamma Ray Telescope. Instead of just providing the expected data referring to high energy-emitting supernovae, black holes or the like, it detected gamma ray bursts incoming from the Earth as well. Further tests and missions c...

24 November 2008
18:41 GMT

X-ray Could Help Predict Lightning Strikes

A new breakthrough in the dynamics of lightning has recently revealed the source of X-ray light emitted moments before the lightning strikes and could help in the near future advance the methods used to predict the moment and location where these phenomena occur."From a practical point of view, if we are going to eve...

17 July 2008
07:03 GMT

Electric Storm Has Been Raging Saturn for Five Months

When it comes to gas giants, nothing is small. This also applies in the case of the electrical storm dominating the southern areas of Saturn for the last five months or so, the longest storm recorded to date and capable of producing lightning discharges some 10,000 times more powerful than those observed on Earth. "W...

30 April 2008
03:31 GMT

Researchers Trigger Lightning with Laser Beam

During an experiment carried out in South Baldy Peak, New Mexico, European researchers using a high-power laser deliberately triggered electrical activity in two passing thunderstorms. Laser pulses created plasma filaments inside the clouds, through which electric current was discharged inside the clouds. However, no...

14 April 2008
06:42 GMT

Lightning and Humans

There are three natural phenomena accompanying the storms that fascinated and frightened human mind since prehistory, when explanation for such powerful natural phenomenon were attributed to gods and spirits. The thunderbolt is an electric discharge accompanied by a vivid light and a powerful sound, which occurs betw...

12 April 2008
07:29 GMT

Lightning: not Zeus' Fault, Blame It on Clouds

Lightning is an atmospheric phenomenon that even today remains mostly mysterious to the researchers. On top of having enough difficulties explaining why lightning forms in the fist place, scientists have also been struggling for decades to understand why bolts of lightning forming in the top layers of the clouds trav...

24 March 2008
04:39 GMT

Thunderbolt, Thunder and Lightning

The thunderbolt is an electric discharge accompanied by a vivid light and a powerful sound, which occurs between two clouds or between a cloud and the ground or objects on the ground. The thunder is a noise accompanying an atmospheric electric discharge (lightening or thunderbolt). The lightning is a luminous electri...

16 February 2008
03:34 GMT

How Do Plasma Lamps Work?

They might have been extremely popular during the 1980's, but now you can hardly find one in any house. Personally I can't understand why, I mean they are fun to play with and produce some really cool light effects. The well known plasma lamps design was invented during the 1970's by a MIT student name...

31 January 2008
06:57 GMT

What Really Causes Lightning?

Air friction would be something to begin with; on the other hand, multiple studies conducted over decades have shown that the electrical fields generated through this process are not able to create even a spark, not to talk about an electric disruptive discharge several hundred meters long. Even if we take into consi...

25 January 2008
06:23 GMT

Listening to MP3s from an iPod in a Storm Almost Killed Man

Lightning and music don't seem to go together very well, as an unfortunate man found out the hard way. He was jogging in Vancouver, Canada and listening to music on his MP3 player, when a lightning struck a tree nearby and his earphones conducted the electricity through his head.Fortunately for him, it wasn...

12 July 2007
05:10 GMT

7 Things You Didn't Know About Lightning

First, let's see what you did know about lightning. You probably know that it's an atmospheric discharge of electricity, occurring during rain storms. You're right. Now let's see if you also knew this:1 - Lightning can form without rain storms.Yes, it's true. Lightning can also occur during v...

30 June 2007
07:10 GMT

How to Avoid Being Struck by Lightning

You've probably heard than when a lightning storm catches you on open ground, you shouldn't take cover under a tree. That's true. Since lighting often strikes the highest spot in an area, ducking below a tall tree is definitely not a good idea, since you'll probably be struck in the same time.If ...

25 June 2007
10:10 GMT

Tesla Coils Perform Super Mario Soundtrack

I must admit I felt quite weird as I looked at the uncanny performance of a Tesla coil sending blasts of electricity through the air at resonating frequencies that actually were the Super Mario theme. What in the first place looked like a very erroneous experiment has turned out to be a real breakthrough in (so far) ...

22 June 2007
04:08 GMT

The Secrets of "Sprite" Lightnings

Sprites are not only legendary elf-like creatures, like fairies, dwarves and spirits from the European folklore. They are also electrical discharges that occur high above the cumulonimbus cloud of an active thunderstorm.The mythical creatures gave their names to quick bursts of electricity that puzzled scientists fo...

14 June 2007
03:10 GMT

Lightning Detectors in Nokia Cell Phones

Mobile devices have more and more features, from playing music and recording videos to gaming and Internet access. Putting aside the entertainment features, Nokia thought that it's time for cell phones to protect customers' safety, so the Finnish company applied for a patent for a lightning detection softw...

28 May 2007
02:42 GMT

How to Explain the Mystery of the Ball Lightning?

There are many historical accounts of spherical lightnings, or "ball lightnings." Although they were once thought to be very rare, a 1960 paper reported that 5% of the US population reported having witnessed ball lightning and another study analyzed reports of 10,000 cases.Ball lightning has the strange tendency to ...

2 May 2007
17:06 GMT

Strike Alert: Personal Lightning Detector

1 of 280,000 people are struck by lightning every year! "So why go outside? Bad things could happen!" Well, at least that's what David Lynch once said in a non-lightning related interview. But you do have to go out sometimes even if it's raining with flashes. So, if you're afraid of your own shadow and...

27 April 2007
14:51 GMT


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