Month: October 2011

The "Tower of Hanoi" task (Courtesy Dan Levin) “Learning by teaching,” a method in which teaching facilitates the tutor’s own understanding, may be improved when the audience is not human, new research from Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College finds. The study, based on research that suggests a person learns… Read More

Each year millions of Americans return to the hospital within 30 days of their previous discharge. Although many readmissions could be preventable, most statistical models for predicting them "perform poorly," according to researchers at Vanderbilt and the Oregon Health and Science University and their affiliated VA medical centers. Read More

New research by Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management professor Bruce Cooil and his coauthors finds that for all the attention companies pay to achieving high satisfaction levels among their customers, what matters most is how well a company ranks in comparison to rivals. No matter how much a customer likes a company or product, if they don’t like it more than the competition, they don’t always put their money where their mouth is. Read More

An update on federally funded projects at Vanderbilt and their impact on efforts to improve education, protect people from disease and meet our nation’s energy needs. Read More

Supplements did not improve outcomes of patients with acute lung injury. Read More

A team of scientists has taken a major step toward developing robot biologists. They have shown that their system, the Automated Biology Explorer, can solve a complicated biology problem from scratch. Read More

The struggle against juvenile crime may come down to one simple question, says a Vanderbilt University researcher: Do we want revenge or do we want results? If we want results, says legal expert Christopher Slobogin, we should dramatically reform the system to stress community-based treatment over incarceration. Read More

Jonathan Metzl was born into medicine but is drawn to the humanities. He’s still insisting on having it both ways. Read More

Larry Bartels, arguably the most influential political scientist of his generation, researches a mix of psychology and democracy for a holistic understanding of the political process. Read More

The U.S. Supreme Court will make decisions on a number of hotly debated cases this term, and a diverse group of Vanderbilt University experts is available to give their opinions about those cases. Read More

The Occupy Wall Street movement could offer a similar opportunity to left-wing politicians as the Tea Party movement did to the right, says a Vanderbilt University historian. Read More

Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction members (C-span) These days the news is full of stories about the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, nicknamed the Super Committee, and whether it can come up with a politically acceptable way to reduce the ballooning federal deficit. This… Read More

Antibodies to the 2009 H1N1 influenza strain reveal new insights into how antibody diversity forms and functions, with possible implications for designing flu vaccines. Read More

Structural studies are providing insight to how aflatoxin – a toxin produced by fungi – contributes to cancer development. Read More

A protein critical in heart development may also play a part in colon cancer progression. Read More

This Week on VUCast: How sticky mittens could help kids with autism A new toolkit to make doctor’s visits easier May the force be with us… See Yoda’s ties to Vanderbilt It’s all in this week’s VUCast —… Read More

Astronomer David Weintraub has given introductory astronomy a “CSI” format by following the scientific evidence that gives us the age of the universe and has put this in a popular science book. Read More

In college, Ashley Rowatt Karpinos, M.D., was an elite athlete, one of the best NCAA swimmers in the country. She says the dedication and work ethic she brought to the pool continues to serve her as she seeks an unorthodox combination of specialties in her medical career. Sure, the uniforms… Read More

Neuronal activity in a deep brain region increases as Parkinson’s disease advances, a new study suggests. Read More

The Supreme Court should strike down President Obama’s proposed expansion of Medicaid, says James F. Blumstein of Vanderbilt University Law School. Read More