Electric field values measured inside thunderclouds have consistently been reported to be up to an order of magnitude lower than the value required for the conventional electrical breakdown of air. This result has made it difficult to explain how lightning frequently occurs in thunderclouds. A few different theories have been offered to explain the lightning initiation process, one of them bein...

ABSTRACT For thousands of years, starting with detailed accounts from ancient Egypt, the African electric catfish (Malapteruridae) has been renowned for its ability to hunt and defend itself powerful shocks. Surprisingly, degree which are protected against their own or external shocks, how specific any protection would be species-specific waveform whether a discharging actively prepare onset hi...

This article shows that differences in the waveforms of the electric organ discharges (EODs) from two taxa are due to the different responsiveness of their electric organs (EOs) to their previous activity (auto-excitability). We compared Gymnotus omarorum endemic to Uruguay (35 degrees South, near a big estuary), which has four components in the head to tail electric field (V(1) to V(4)), with ...

In the literature, there are different criteria to represent the formation of a leader channel in short and long gap discharges. Due to the complexity of the physics of the heating phenomena, and the limitations of the computational resources, a simplified criterion for the minimum amount of electrical charge required to incept an unstable leader has recently been used for modeling long gap dis...

Weakly electric fish emit electric organ discharges (EODs) to locate objects around themselves and for communication. The EOD is generated by a simple hierarchically organized, neurophysiologically accessible circuit, the electromotor system. A number of forms of plasticity of the EOD waveform are initiated by social or environmental factors and mediated by hormones or neurotransmitters. Becaus...

Stationary DC electric fields are determined by the resistivity distribution of the insulation materials. In the presence of interfaces between different insulation materials, charge accumulation at these boundary layers may have a significant influence on the electric field distribution and with it on the breakdown strength of the arrangement. In many previous works, surface charging of model ...

Despite centuries of interest in electric eels, few studies have investigated the mechanism of the eel's attack. Here, I review and extend recent findings that show eel electric high-voltage discharges activate prey motor neuron efferents. This mechanism allows electric eels to remotely control their targets using two different strategies. When nearby prey have been detected, eels emit a high-v...

Understanding fixed motor pattern diversity across related species provides a window for exploring the evolution of their underlying neural mechanisms. The electric organ discharges of weakly electric fishes offer several advantages as paradigmatic models for investigating how a neural decision is transformed into a spatiotemporal pattern of action. Here, we compared the far fields, the near fi...

Many animals have the ability to detect electric and magnetic fields. Although many species respond and orient to magnetic stimuli, only recently were putative vertebrate receptor systems identified. All organisms generate weak electric fields in water, due to an uneven distribution of ions between the interior of the organism and the external aqueous environment. Ampullary electroreceptors are...

Transmission lines located in the Sinai desert are subjected to desert climate, one of whose features, especially in the spring, is sand storms. Line insulators are thus exposed to sand contamination, which may produce streamer discharges in the air surrounding insulator surface. Such discharges may lead to flashover. This paper examines the electric field and potential distributions on sand-po...