My skin reddens as blood flow increases, carrying nutrients and oxygen to repair the damage. The longer I spend in the sun, the more permanent the damage becomes. Like me, the internet Radio also has a protective skin. The atmosphere above us stops half of the sun's lethal rays, which are absorbed or reflected back into space by clouds, particles in the air, and atmospheric gases. Without the atmosphere, life wouldn't be possible. But the skies that shield us from these harmful rays also contain their own deadly energy. It's one of summer's biggest killers lightning. From space, NASA cameras captured amazing images of our electric skies. At this moment, there are almost , individual thunderstorms taking place around the internet Radio. On average, lightning strikes the earth about a hundred times a second. When the lightning hit me, it was like nothing I could ever imagine. I felt like someone had thrown a hand grenade in my face. To get as close as I could to being struck by lightning, I went to see Mike Alexander at the Theatre of Electricity in Boston. This is your own lightning machine. It's a Van de Graaf generator. It was invented in Boston. It really works in a very simple way. It stores a lot of extra negative charge on top of those two spheres until there's enough for . million volts. That's a lot of volts. That could do a lot of damage. Everyone's safe out here, but inside this cage it can get a bit dangerous. Your hair stands on end, you get a bluish glow off your nose, you get a shock if you touch anything. The scientists say that if you were hit by one of those lightning bolts, you would probably live, but I haven't tried that yet. They say you will feel your hair stand up on your arms or your skin tingle. I didn't. I felt this enormous blast. This enormous white light blinded me, and I felt the electricity going through my body. That's the last thing I felt because it threw me up and knocked me out. Would you like to come in? (DRAMATIC, THREATENING CHORDS) While the machine is on, the safest place to be is surrounded by metal. It seems that all this metal is the most unsafe it could possibly be. It goes against your common sense, but if you're surrounded by metal you're safelightning can't get in. So if you're in a thunderstorm and in a car, that's a safe place to be? It is, surprisingly enough. It's not the tyres, it's the metal surrounding you. It protects you absolutely, but it has to be a metal car, not fibreglass. What about rubber soles and Wellington boots? It would keep your feet dry, but it won't stop lightning hitting you. You've just buried another old wives' tale. You feel a bit like God's booth up here lightning on command. You feel like the guy from the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain. You can make lightning happen whenever you want. And they say lightning never strikes twice. Not so for Linda Cooper. I answered the telephone, it was my daughter, she wanted her dad. I said, "Hello", and as she said, "Is Dad there...?" Lightning struck the telephone. I had the receiver up to my face. I could feel electricity in my face.