"Ballooning" Spiders Use Electrostatic Forces to Generate Lift (medium.com)

Wow, I wonder if this effect could be scaled up? I'd love to try to build a small prototype.

I saw this in the story:

“This field exists globally in the atmosphere with an average surface magnitude of 120 Volts per metre pointing downward,” says Gorham.

I never knew this. Where does it come from? Why can't it be used to generate power?

The negative charge on spider silk has also recently been discovered to enhance the ability of webs to capture insects:

http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2013/07/04/spider-webs-more-e...