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For all the technological innovation the modern industrial age has afforded us, protection against lightning is not on the list. To guard our homes and buildings from lightning strikes and subsequent fires, we still rely on the lightning rod, a technology invented by Founding Father Benjamin Franklin. Yes, really: Our best method at directing lightning still comes from the guy who tied a metal key to a kite and flew it during a thunderstorm.
Still, Franklin’s lightning rod—consisting of a conductive metal rod that directs lightning to strike the ground via a wire—works well for most situations. “The classical Franklin Rod is very efficient and relatively cheap,” Aurélien Houard, a physicist at École polytechnique in Palaiseau, France, told The Daily Beast in an email. “Its main limitation is related to its size, and to the fact that you cannot install lightning rods everywhere, while lightning strikes can fall almost everywhere.”
Lightning storms don’t just cause damage to buildings. Bolts can strike people, lead to hundreds of injuries and about 20 deaths each year in the U.S., and ignite devastating wildfires. Creating ways to protect more than just buildings from lightning’s damage—or better yet, devising a single method to attract lightning bolts and discharge them safely—would represent the biggest breakthrough in centuries for this area of study.