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A study claiming that a "memory" could be transferred from one animal to another in form of an injection has caused a lot of excitement. The Futurist said that Scientists Transferred Memories From One Snail to Another. Someday, They Could Do The Same in Humans. But I have to say I'm not convinced. In the paper, published in eNeuro, UCLA researchers Alexis Bédécarrats and collagues report that they extracted RNA from the neurons of sea slugs (Aplysia) after training them to be sensitive to

The eruption at Kīlauea is still captivating the nation, as it should because this volcano hasn't behaving like this in almost a century. I thought I'd take a moment to step back and review of the main events so far and what it might all mean for Kīlauea and the people who live around the volcano. These eruptions are separated by a long way if you look at the satellite data and should almost be treated at two different events. The Leilani Estates Fissures As we enter the third week of th

The biggest explosion yet from the Kilauea volcano propelled 1,000-pound rocks into the air, and sent ash rocketing 30,000 feet high The eruption of Kilauea Volcano on Hawaii's Big Island this morning sent an ash plume exploding about 30,000 feet high into the atmosphere. And as luck would have it, a camera was watching. The camera is located about 40 miles away on the Gemini North telescope atop 13,803-foot Mauna Kea. It's ordinarily is used to monitor the sky so that telescope opera

It is always exciting (to me) when a scientist runs for public office -- and doubly so if that person is a geologist. There have been a few geologists who made waves as politicians, including Colorado governor John Hickenlooper (we'll leave you to sort out Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke's claims of "being a geologist"). Now, imagine if that person was also a volcanologist. Now you really have my attention. That's Jess Phoenix, a Democrat running for the U.S. House of Representatives in

[Editor's note: One of the most popular articles on our site is a piece by Georgia Institute of Technology researcher John Edgar Browning about his work with the real vampire community, published in March 2015. In it, Browning discusses what a real vampire is, how they live their lives, and what researchers are hoping to learn about them. Here, he expands on the difficulties of finding and studying this enigmatic group of people, as well as the lessons he's learned in the process.] - W

Mosquito bites are like a gross form of French kissing — the insects swap your blood with their saliva, and leave a trail of salivary secretions behind like mosquito cooties. Some of those compounds prevent clotting as the insects slurp up your blood. Now researchers find mosquito spit aggravates your immune system for days afterward. The findings could help scientists develop vaccines for mosquito-born diseases like Zika. Rebecca Rico-Hesse, a virologist at Baylor College of Medicine in

Southeast Asia is home to scores of different languages and cultures, but the story of how such diversity blossomed in the region has always been unclear. A new study out today turns to ancient DNA — a rare find in hot and humid environments — to track waves of human migration over the past 4,000 years. Ancient DNA  (aDNA) is a rare thing. It requires a narrow range of conditions — essentially, cold and dry — to be preserved more than a few centuries. To have found enough genetic materi

You know when you’re filling out your medical paperwork and it asks for your emergency contact? Sure, the process might be annoying, but that emergency contact could actually be put to good use by researchers. Since many of us use a family member, those contacts can help scientists create family trees. And they can also be used for genetics and disease research, according to a study released Thursday in Cell. Discovering what diseases are inheritable can be a laborious and expensive proce

A research company is seeking funding to build a prototype autonomous, battery-powered flatcar that would serve as a platform for package-delivery drones. Cambridge Research & Development in New Hampshire has applied for a patent for the concept. The vehicle, Cambridge founder and CEO Ken Steinberg says, could carry and deliver freight or serve as a moving platform for autonomous package-delivery drones. The idea is to take advantage of railroad capacity that goes unused on commute

Scientists today are searching for the "Golden Spike," evidence for the presence of man that will show up even hundreds of thousands of years from now. Such a marker would officially kick off the Anthropocene, the epoch of man, and candidates include the presence of radiation from nuclear bomb tests in geological samples and elevated levels of CO2 preserved in ice cores. But even today, we can look back into the layers of Earth's past and see evidence of humanity. Researchers have peered