A group of European researchers has developed a method of vastly improving the old-fashioned lightning rod. The system fires 1,000 terawatt-level laser pulses per second into storm clouds, ...

Lightning rods have been used to safely guide strikes into the ground since Benjamin Franklin's day, but their short range (roughly the same radius as the height) and fixed-in-place design makes them ...

Lightning is estimated to cause up to 24,000 deaths globally each year. It starts forest fires, burns buildings and crops, and causes power outages. The best, most practical technology available to ...

Lightning is one of the most powerful forces on Earth, and try as we might, it’s tough to control... but not impossible. Early this year, a team of European scientists scaled the heights of human ...

Lightning rods have been used to guide lightning strikes for centuries, but now scientists have demonstrated something a bit more advanced than a humble metal stick. Beaming a high-powered laser into ...

Like a high-tech hammer of Thor, a powerful laser can grab hold of a lightning bolt and reroute its path through the sky. In a mountaintop experiment, such a laser bent lightning toward a lightning ...