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If you put an LED, resistor, and MOSFET in series and then attach the gate to a wire, you can often switch the LED on and off by waving your hand around the wire. If you have an oscilloscope, hook it up to the resistor and see if you can find a position of your hand that will switch the transistor at 60hz :-)

This is quite common when working on unshielded electronics. Standing up from a chair, depending on clothes and chair fabric, generates a huge amount of static. Even just walking past can be enough.

Proper hardware development labs have antistatic carpet etc., but in embedded software development, one often doesn't have this luxury and has to be aware.

Static electricity can generate hard X-rays http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/science/28xray.html?_r=0 (in a vacuum at least).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87jnCABBaeY

Overly enthusiastic video demonstrating the issue for those who are curious. :)