Year: 2004

Just before the traditional peak of the holiday shopping season, U.S. PIRG (Public Interest Research Group) has released its 19th annual toy safety report. On Nov. 23, several toys were demonstrated for their potential hazards at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt. Veronica Gunn, M.D., assistant professor of Pediatrics at the Children's Hospital talked about the types of injuries that are commonly seen each year involving toys. Read More

Last year ushered in a swirl of notoriety regarding influenza vaccine. The 2003-2004 flu season arrived early and hit hard. For many individuals, thanks in part to tremendous media hype and a delay in the availability of vaccine supplies, flu shots were a highly-sought after commodity. Read More

Children between the ages of 7 and 12 who have a sibling with special needs are invited to attend a Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Sibshop Saturday, Dec. 4, from 10 a.m. to 2. p.m. Read More

Nashville will get a new concert series with the launch of Bluebird on the Mountain, an expansion of successful collaborations between Vanderbilt University's Dyer Observatory and the Bluebird CafÈ. Read More

Several Vanderbilt employees were recognized by the Mayor's Advisory Committee for People with Disabilities at the committee's 23rd Annual Recognition Reception held at the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development Nov. 15. The committee presented its annual awards in 12 categories to people, organizations or businesses that have enhanced the lives of those in the disability community. Read More

Vanderbilt Kennedy Center director Pat Levitt has been awarded the 2004 Friend of Children award by the Tennessee Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. The award recognizes Levitt's contributions at the local, state and national level to the healthy development of children. Read More

If you run into Ed Saff at a cocktail party and ask him what he does for a living, the mathematician is likely to reply that he is working on a "method for creating the perfect poppy-seed bagel." Then he'll pause and add, "Maybe that's not the most accurate description, but it's the most digestible." Read More

Madison Smartt Bell, a Middle Tennessee native who recently published the last of a trilogy of novels about the Haitian revolution, will read at Vanderbilt University from his book The Stone That the Builder Refused. Read More

Catherine Brescia Reynolds, a prominent philanthropist and pioneer in the development of privately funded student loan programs, is the newest member of the Vanderbilt University Board of Trust. Read More

Vanderbilt chemist Chuck Lukehart has received a $50,000 grant from Honda Corporation to develop new breakthroughs in fuel cell technology. Lukehart was one of five researchers selected this year by Honda to receive its annual Honda Initiation Grant. Lukehart will accept the grant at the 2004 Honda Initiation Grant Symposium Nov. 19 in Hollywood, Calif. Read More

The number of registered nurses entering the job market appears to be on a steady incline, with a total employment growth of over 200,000 R.N.'s since 2001, the largest increase since the early 1980's, but experts at the School of Nursing say it's still not enough to prevent a long-term crisis that threatens to cripple the entire health care system. Read More

Four-and-a-half-month-old Abigail Patrick received a new heart at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt early this morning. Read More

The modern world is filled with the uncoordinated beeping and buzzing of countless electronic devices, so it was only a matter of time before someone designed an electronic network with the ability to synchronize dozens of tiny buzzers in much the same way that frogs and cicadas coordinate their nighttime choruses. Kenneth D. Frampton, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Vanderbilt University, dreamed up the project. Read More

Vanderbilt's Sleep Disorders Center has garnered national accreditation from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM). Read More

Conventional wisdom has held that companies in which governments reqlinquished some level of control through privatization would out-perform companies in which they retained a controlling interest or had substantial veto powers. However, a new study from the Owen Graduate School of Management finds that publicly traded companies remaining under government control actually do better in terms of performance and market value than companies that are more fully or completely privatized. Read More

A new chair at Vanderbilt University Law School, the second at the school to honor alumnus Milton Underwood, has been awarded to one of the nation's leading bankruptcy scholars. The Milton Underwood Chair in Law will be awarded formally to Robert Rasmussen in a ceremony on Feb. 23, 2005. Rasmussen, former associate dean for academic affairs, also holds the FedEx Research Professorship and directs the law and economics program. Read More

An unidentified minimal hearing loss is a significant factor in the psychosocial and educational progress of young children, according to multiple research studies conducted over the past 20 years at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Researchers will present their findings during the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association's (ASHA) annual convention at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, November 18-20. Read More

In recognition of his efforts "to protect and conserve" its cultural resources, Maya archaeologist Arthur Demarest has received one of the Republic of Guatemala's highest awards, the National Order of Cultural Patrimony. Read More

Russian and American scientists hope to help each other avert nuclear disasters by coming together at Vanderbilt Nov. 14-17 to share methods, techniques and scientific research related to secure management of nuclear materials, including those at nuclear power plants, nuclear weapons' sites and nuclear waste facilities. Read More

The economics department at Vanderbilt University marks the establishment of its newest chair, the Joe L. Roby Chair of Economics, with a lecture on Nov. 17 by the chair's first holder, Eric Bond, professor of economics and a renowned international economist. Read More