We were always amused that one of the biggest scientific discoveries of the recent past — graphene — was started with pencil lead and Scotch tape. Now, researchers at the University of Alabama in ...

So, I want to make a small hand-operated electric generator with my kids just to kind of show them how this kind of thing works. I understand the basics, but there are some things I want to do that I ...

Electric-power production is a conservative business; it makes electricity just as it did more than a century ago—by driving copper wires through magnetic fields. That is all that happens in the huge, ...