Tag Archives: electricity

Flower power

By Stephen Ornes / March 11, 2013
Scientists report that bees and flowers appear to have a charged communication. In addition to a flower’s color and scent, its electric field may also bring in bees, a new study shows. Credit: Emily Krieger

Electric field around flowers may help bees find nutritious blooms

Posted in Animals, Plants | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hot technology

By Stephen Ornes / July 19, 2012
This drawing shows a tiny device that can use changes in temperature to produce electricity. The golden lines in the middle represent wires made from zinc oxide. They’re sandwiched between two plates that conduct electricity. Credit: Z.L. Wang

A new device harvests energy that would otherwise go wasted

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Battery powered to heal

By Stephen Ornes / April 7, 2011
Battery Capsles

With its own first-aid kit, this battery can really keep going

Posted in Atoms & Forces | Tagged , , , , , ,

Like electricity, but magnetic

By Stephen Ornes / March 1, 2011
Charged to move Researchers figured out how to make single magnetic poles (illustrated here) move through a material called spin ice.

Getting magnetic poles on the move makes a new kind of flow

Posted in Light & Radiation | Tagged , , , , , , ,

Letting molecules do the work

By Douglas Fox / December 11, 2009

Why go to the trouble of carefully building electric circuits when the circuits can build themselves?

Posted in Chemistry | Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Letting molecules do the work

By Douglas Fox / December 11, 2009

Why go to the trouble of carefully building electric circuits when the circuits can build themselves?

Posted in Technology & Engineering | Tagged , ,

Batteries built by viruses

By Stephen Ornes / October 28, 2009

Scientists use microbes to create tiny power supplies

Posted in Technology & Engineering | Tagged , , , , , , ,

Weaving with Light

By Emily Sohn / October 11, 2007

By weaving tiny crystals into fabrics, a new technology is lighting up the night for people who lack electricity.

Posted in Technology & Engineering | Tagged , , , ,

Electricity’s Spark of Life

By Emily Sohn / September 29, 2003

Researchers are taking advantage of the vital roles that electricity plays in our bodies to advance medicine.

Posted in Physics | Tagged , ,