It was a quiet afternoon in the colonial city. People were out and about in the streets, shopping and discussing the day's issues with friends. The sun was shining, but there was a hint of storminess in the western sky. Black clouds slowly took shape, casting shadows over the buildings and outdoor markets. Brisk winds began to blow, and a sprinkle of rain lightly danced on the cobblestones. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and a flash of light illuminated the ominous sky. To most of the city’s residents, it was a signal to find shelter, but to others, it was the perfect time to go outside.
He’d been waiting for weather like this; now was his chance. He grabbed his contraption made of cloth, hemp, string, and wire, and he and his son hurriedly found some open space, an empty lot suitable for the experiment. The storm was closer now, the thunder louder and lightning more frequent. He adjusted his homemade kite, then ran with it until it was airborne, letting string out a little at a time. He tied a metal key to the string where it would be close to his hand.
The storm was in full swing now, with thunder booming and frequent lightning illuminating the field. Rain soaked the kite and string. Then, something happened that he had predicted and hoped would come to fruition; the hemp’s tiny loose filaments seemed to get a mind of their own. They began to perk up like little hairs. The kite-flying scientist marveled at the sight of it. The hemp was affected by the storm’s electrical energy. When he slowly moved his hand closer to the key, an even more incredible thing happened: a spark traveled from the key to his knuckle. It was the most wonderful shock he had ever received.
With his clumsy apparatus, Benjamin Franklin, standing in a vacant lot in Philadelphia during a dangerous storm, confirmed that lightning was electric. The accounts of his experiment went viral.
We now know that electricity is present not just in lightening, but in nature as a whole. Electric eels, static electricity in our homes, and nerve conductions in our bodies are all based on electrical charges. Our hearts use indigenous pacemakers and an intricate electrical network to stimulate its muscle to pump blood, and similar elements create peristalsis which moves digested food down the gastrointestinal tract.
Recently, research has discovered another example of how organisms use negative and positive charges to their benefit. Bees and flowers have a wonderful symbiotic relationship, and in their quest for nectar bees are attracted to flowers, which results in pollination. The bees get food and in the process, the plant reproduces.
Bees are attracted to flowers by their brilliant color and aroma. But that’s not all. Experiments have shown that bees have a slight positive charge, and flowers a negative charge, leading to a beautiful example of how “opposites attract.” When a bee approaches a flower, this bipolarity causes tiny hairs on its head to vibrate, signaling to the bee that it should visit this source of nectar. As the bee gets closer, the electric charge is potent enough that the pollen literally jumps from the flower to the bee. Once the bee has taken the nectar and stored the pollen on its body, the flower’s negative charge dissipates and becomes more neutral. When other bees immediately approach this flower, they don’t sense the bipolarity and thus search out different flowers, making their quest more efficient.
Naturalist Sir David Attenborough demonstrates the process in this video:
Earth’s magnetic fields, lightning, positive and negative charges in nature, currents running through our bodies . . . all forms of electricity that surrounds us, is inside of us, and binds us to nature. Bees and flowers serve as an example of electrical energy in the world around us.
"The day when we shall know exactly what electricity is will chronicle an event probably greater, more important than any other recorded in the history of the human race. The time will come when the comfort, the very existence, perhaps, of man will depend upon that wonderful agent." ~ Nikola Tesla
References
Shahmshad Ahmed Khan, Khalid Ali Khan, Stepan Kubik, Saboor Ahmad, Hamed A. Ghramh, Afzal Ahmad, Milan Skalicky, Zeenat Naveed, Sadia Malik, Ahlam Khalofah & Dalal M. Aljedani. Electric field detection as floral cue in hoverfly pollination. Scientific Reports (2021) 11:18781.
Dominic Clarke, Erica Morley, Daniel RobertThe bee, the flower, and the electric field: electric ecology and aerial electroreception. J Comp Physiol A (2017) 203:737–748
Zakon HH,www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1607426113)
Thank you Marv Olmstead for this beautiful photo of a bee with pollen grains adhered to its head.